


Slow Waters

by brigitttt



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Amputee Anakin Skywalker, Jaegers (Pacific Rim), Kaiju (Pacific Rim), M/M, The Drift (Pacific Rim), light monster body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29806092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brigitttt/pseuds/brigitttt
Summary: The events of seven days in the mid-autumn of 2025, between the arrival of the Fett brothers -- the three-man Ranger team nicknamed "The Clones" by the general public -- to the Tokyo Shatterdome, and the last mission made against the Kaiju invasion.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 99
Kudos: 185





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is complete, and I hope to post a chapter at least twice a week, to give myself time to make edits. I basically consumed all of clone wars in a very short span of time at the grateful knifepoint of peer pressure, and felt the need to make a nice easy entrance into this fandom/pairing. Please enjoy :)

[ tai mate : **(Māori; noun)**](https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=tai+mate/) slack water, slow-moving water; a time at the turn of the tide when it is neither ebbing nor flowing

***

Dark and cloudy greens and browns and greys swirl in a dry haze around him, wrapping themselves up in his arms, holding his chin up, floating slowly downwards, to where he can feel a pull, to where he knows the ocean floor lies. He can’t feel his feet touch down, but he knows he’s there, another swirl of darkness appearing at the edge of his vision, approaching from behind, swallowing him whole, but it’s fine . . . until it’s not, and he can hear Qui-Gon drop out of comms with one last breath, Anakin gasping in pain from the speaker beside him as everyone’s life signs drop, he doesn’t need to look at the console to know it’s happening, his own death-grip on the metal surface of the command control tightening past any sort of normal, when—

Obi-Wan wakes up in his bunk with a jolt, his right hand clenching tightly into the sheets. Collapsing back, he runs a hand down over his face, then wipes that on the sheets, palm covered in sweat. If he holds himself silently in bed for a minute, he can calm his heartrate back down like they teach in the Jaeger Academy, four flights down and across the hangar from where he’s currently wondering how close his dream was to what a real drift is like. He should ask Anakin sometime.

As he’s done every morning this week, Obi-Wan turns off his alarm well before it’s due to go off, and levers himself out of bed. His back cracks when he leans forward, and at the risk of pulling something he’ll regret, he twists his torso carefully to the right, all the way until he hears another distant crack from his beleaguered spine. With practised movements, he shrugs on his uniform; he’s technically a general, just one rank below Marshal Windu, and everyone who is introduced to him on the grounds of the Shatterdome hears that title first. In the eyes of the actual military, though, he’s just a specialist officer. If he were to exit into the still-warm, mid-autumn air of the Tokyo Bay Area, he’d be just another worker at the Dome, the poor souls. He grabs up a stack of memo pads, slaps his ID badge onto his belt, and wishes desperately for some tea. 

The hallways of the barracks are almost claustrophobically narrow, designed in such a way that a fully staffed Dome in its heyday could house at least a couple thousand people. Recently, those numbers have dwindled significantly. There just isn’t enough incentive for the government to keep every one of the Domes open anymore, and with the loss of Rangers due to poorly handled missions, the loss of funding due to, well, everything else, it’s a bit of an outfit held together with string.

That being said, there’s still enough people in the place to create a real bustle, especially with how close it is to breakfast, and how close the barracks are to the mess hall. Obi-Wan has to dodge around officers and cadets, medical staff and mechanics, his memos clutched tight to his chest, nodding and smiling at the couple salutes he gets as he walks past. The marshal surely doesn’t have to weave his way through crowds every morning, he thinks, but then again, the marshal is rarely seen around the mess. Obi-Wan has heard the rumours flying around with various tenuous reasons why Field Marshal Mace Windu of the Tokyo Shatterdome skips breakfast in the mess every morning. Obi-Wan holds back a snort to himself as he edges his way around a gaggle of K-Science crew; maybe Windu is just smart.

Of course, he thinks he’s free of the worst of it, the hallway leading to the lifts to the training rooms in sight, when Anakin collides bodily with him, catching his arm so Obi-Wan doesn’t fall, but sending the memo pads flying.

“Hey! Sorry, sorry,” Anakin says, bending down to pick up a couple of them between his fingers. He’s not wearing his prosthetic today, the right sleeve of his J-Tech jumpsuit knotted below his shoulder. Obi-Wan shrugs off the consternation at failing to navigate the halls unscathed, and accepts the rest of the retrieved memo pads when Anakin hands them back. Anakin waves his hand and sends him that lopsided grin that always says ‘ _See? Everything’s fine’_. “Sorry, Obi-Wan, I gotta go.”

“Where are you off to in such a rush?” Obi-Wan has to spin to keep Anakin in view. When did he get so fast?

“That part I requested finally came in,” he says eagerly. “The one for the re-fit of the old basement-Jaeger.”

“Oh yes, I remember,” Obi-Wan sighs. The basement-Jaeger has been Anakin’s pet project for well over a year now, on special allowance from the J-Tech higher-ups to refurbish the old Mark-3. What they intend to do with it after its makeover is more than Obi-Wan currently has the capacity to be responsible for; all he knows is that it was only in active use between its creation in 2016 and the more prevalent use of Mark-4’s in 2020. As far as Obi-Wan knows, it’s been gathering dust in sub-bay 4 ever since, until Anakin got his hands on it. Because it’s just the way between them by now, and Obi-Wan has to fulfil his duty as older brother, he affects a gently disapproving tone and says, “Really, Anakin, no one wants a big nuclear reactor just sitting around.”

Anakin puts on his own serious face and says, “Uh, _I_ want a big nuclear reactor around.” He breaks into a smile again. “She’s an antique, she’s beautiful.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Obi-Wan laughs. “Look, I have to go. Stay out of trouble.” He says it out of habit at this point.

Anakin turns to leave, tosses the general essence of a salute back over his shoulder at Obi-Wan. “Not if it finds me first!” he calls.

“I mean it!” Obi-Wan shouts down the corridor at Anakin’s back, startling a couple of the breakfast-rush stragglers passing by. He huffs a laugh, and turns the corner for the lift.

No matter how many Shatterdomes he lives in and how many times he takes the lifts to cross the hangar, it’s always a surprise to go from the narrow passageways behind the woodwork, as it were, and emerge into the vast and open air of the hangar itself. The people walking on the main hangar floor several stories below look like ants, and Obi-Wan himself just a fly buzzing around the colossal heads of the Jaegers themselves.

There’s only one functional Jaeger in Tokyo right now, any others are still in disembodied pieces, held up on maintenance simply for the lack of anyone available to pilot them. The lonely mech stands towering over everything, headless as it waits for deployment of the Conn-Pod, but elegant nonetheless. It’s sleek and chrome with stripes of gold-coloured facings running over the chest plates and down its legs, the rarity of a third arm jutting out from just below its normal left one. The cage of maintenance lattices surrounding it are already in the process of being taken down, in preparation for the imminent arrival of the pilots.

When the lift halts at the other side of the hangar, there’s a pause just before the doors open in which Obi-Wan always finds himself looking out at the absolute sight of the whole place. He doesn’t have the time for many other things but he can give himself this, the second-long glimpse across the whole Dome, a massive, organised mess of metal and light. The reverse happens on his way back over the hangar in the evening, when the ocean in view from these top windows of the Dome is lit up with the sunset in golds and pinks, always reflecting off the shine of whichever Jaeger has found its way to working here.

Soon enough, though, the brief moment is over, and Obi-Wan adjusts his hold on the memos in his arms as he turns to the lift doors, following the flow of people out into the hallway to the training rooms.

He’s only over here to meet with Luminara, the head instructor and Fightmaster for the Tokyo Jaeger Academy, but he swerves into the Combat Room first instead of heading straight to her office. He doesn’t train as much as he used to, kept busy with the responsibilities of a general, but it’s good to see the cadets in action. Only a couple are warming up on the rowing machines in the near corner, until Ahsoka enters through the double doors with a few more, smiling and bubbly as usual.

She picks up a staff and twirls it once before noticing Obi-Wan standing in the other doorway, and skips her way over, a little hop to her step that reminds him with a smile of a triple jump track event. She stops just short of the edge of the training mat and points the end of the staff at him.

“One-on-one?” She proposes, arching a brow, then wiggles the staff at his uniform. “I’m assuming that all tears away to a real athletic getup.”

“I’m afraid not,” Obi-Wan says, lightly pushing away the end of the staff where it hovers at his chest. “Maybe some time later?”

“Holding you to that,” Ahsoka says, skipping back over to the other cadets with her braids bouncing, all of them ready to practice their forms.

One of the memo pads shifts in Obi-Wans loosened grip, making him flinch and re-adjust it in the pile. He jumps again at Luminara’s steady voice suddenly behind him in the doorway, and turns. She’s got a hand on her hip and her own memo pad in the other, like they’re in school and about to compare notes. Although, Obi-Wan thinks, that’s not that far off.

“Thought I’d find you in here,” she says, and starts edging out into the hallway. Obi-Wan follows.

“Ah, yes, well,” he starts, stroking his beard until he remembers she knows that’s one of his tells. “I was just checking to see if you were already teaching.”

“You know you don’t need to use our meetings as an excuse to come see the cadets, right?” As always, she’s hit the nail on the head. Obi-Wan thinks about putting up a fight but then sighs.

“I—wasn’t.” He ignores her raised eyebrow and tilts his stack of memo pads to look at the one on top. “Anything to report to the marshal?”

It’s Luminara’s turn to avoid his gaze, glancing back through the door to the Combat Room. “No one yet,” she says quietly. “They’re getting there, but they’re just not good enough, yet. The only one who could stand a real chance is, well.” She purses her lips.

Obi-Wan nods. He knows she’s talking about Ahsoka without her having to say any more. The thing is, Ahsoka has been at the top of the list essentially since her arrival at the academy, but every time Luminara and the other instructors think they’ve got a co-pilot for her, it always goes south. Either no one is compatible to drift at all with her, or someone is able to drift with her at the bare minimum, only to pair up with someone they’re much more compatible with. Ahsoka’s only been here for slightly less time than Obi-Wan has, and with every year that passes he wonders why she hasn’t given up yet. Not that she should; they’re all a little desperate, and somehow that desperation has become the norm. The fact that they have even this many cadets at all is a miracle.

“I’ll tell them the same, then,” Obi-Wan says, and Luminara pats him consolingly on the arm before heading back into the Combat Room. He hears her calling for the cadets to grab staffs, pair up, spread out, until he’s far enough down the hallway that even the sound of the sharp clashes of the wooden staffs can’t make its way to him.

There’s a perfectly good meeting room just down the hall from the Command Centre that absolutely no one ever uses. It has a big corporate style desk and fancy user interface displays and everything, obviously intended for all those important meetings that are happening when there aren’t any Kaiju on their way to destroy the Pacific coastal cities. It’s stark and impersonal and Obi-Wan can count the number of times he’s gone in there on one hand.

All his meetings with Marshal Windu happen in the actual Command Centre, regardless of immediate attack or not. There’s something about the LOCCENT, with its digital war clock slowly counting upwards – currently at 6 days, 21 hours, 13 minutes and 4 seconds, 5 seconds, 6 – and its new-old combination of holo-displays and big chunky buttons, like whoever designed the space couldn’t decide which era they wanted to be in. It’s also got actual people in it, a rota of Mission Controllers and comms officers switching out on a schedule so that they’re always ready. No one can accuse them of not being prepared, at least in the sense of radar and headsets and Jaeger status displays.

Obi-Wan finally sets down the stack of memos on an open desk, where a junior officer picks them right back up, re-orders them, and swishes off through the door. On a subtle clearing of Plo Koon’s throat, Obi-Wan turns to face the meeting.

Marshal Windu doesn’t give him any time before asking, voice as hard and serious as ever, “Did you bring those straight from your rooms again?”

“I did stop by Luminara on my way,” Obi-Wan tries, but Windu knows him too well.

“I shouldn’t say ‘take a break,’ considering—” he gestures widely at everything, the war clock, the command consoles, the pipes along the ceiling, “but please, Obi-Wan. You have an office for a reason.”

The reason is to separate his work as a general from whichever part of his life exists outside of helping to fight Kaiju. Obi-Wan thinks even Shaak Ti didn’t believe her own suggestion when she’d recommended it to all the command officials. All he does is nod at Windu with deference, and tuck his now empty hands behind his back.

“The status of the cadets remains the same,” he reports. “Aside from—Fightmaster Unduli informs me that no one is ready to be graduated forward yet.” Both Windu and Plo look somewhat resigned to this news; Obi-Wan carries on. “The preparations on the new Jaeger are essentially finished, and the repairs to C-Wing of the Dome are progressing on schedule.” Obi-Wan releases his hands from behind his back, as if to say _that’s all_ , and then realises he has nowhere else to put them. He crosses his arms.

“What of Skywalker’s project?” Plo asks. His voice is always measured, certain, which Obi-Wan appreciates. He can imagine the effect it would have on any new Ranger to hear it come from Mission Control.

“He says he’s just received some sort of necessary mechanical piece from a supplier. I believe it is . . . too soon to say when the Jaeger might be fully operational.”

“Not that we have anyone else ready to pilot it,” Windu says. “No rush on that front.”

“Any word from the new pilots?” Obi-Wan asks.

Plo nods, says, “They should arrive here in an hour.”

Perfect, Obi-Wan thinks, but before he can say it his right arm tenses beyond his control, collar bone to fingertips. He grips his left hand around his bicep, willing the spasm to go away, and feels something wet on his upper lip. “Pardon me,” he grits out, turning his back to the others to straighten his arm, grip the edge of the console behind him, his right hand painfully protesting against the movement. He digs in an inside coat pocket for his handkerchief and wipes away the blood, starkly red against the fabric. Pinches his nose.

He turns back to the Marshal and Plo. “Nothing to worry about,” he says, waving off their concern. Neither of them look less perturbed with his dismissal, but his right arm is already slowly relaxing back to normal.

To Obi-Wan’s relief, Windu doesn’t push it. Instead, he pulls up a diagram on the table’s holo-display, a 3D visual of the breach and the ocean floor immediately surrounding it.

“You both may have expected this to come for a while now, but the Secretary-General has approved the plans for Operation Titan Strike,” he says, not bothering to lower his voice, even though this information is surely not meant to be disseminated to the rest of the staff quite this quickly. “The mission will be to drop a nuclear weapon into the channel here,” he points to the display, “and if it works, it will be destroyed. No more Kaiju.”

“Haven’t we tried versions of this plan in the past, to little effect?” Obi-Wan says. The little blinking bomb drifting down the display makes his stomach clench.

“We have, yes,” Windu says. “The Defense Corps. leaders believe that upon a simultaneous attack made by all remaining Jaegers, the effects will be much more successful.” He gives a wry twist of his mouth.

“And much more permanent,” Plo adds. All three of them take a silent moment to consider the ramifications of a potential ending, calculating how much of their lives have been spent trying to alleviate a symptom of what seemed like an incurable problem. Without needing to look around the room, Obi-Wan’s sure that each of the LOCCENT technicians in earshot are doing the same.

Obi-Wan retreats back across the hangar to the mess hall; he might as well wait out the hour before the new pilots come with some breakfast. He’s thankfully avoided the real morning rush by going to his meetings first, but this also means that there’s no more fish left, just miso and rice. He charms the canteen server into giving him extra tofu pieces in his soup, finds a free table, and waits.

***

The Fetts are on file as a pair of twins and an older brother, but they’re known by the general populace – of Sydney, if not the rest of the Pan-Pacific countries – as the Clones. Obi-Wan has seen pictures of them, just the ones the media took during the height of the Jaeger program, all decked out in their drivesuits, helmets held at the hip. They did look remarkably similar to each other, even for siblings, and seeing them deplane in front of him now it’s hard to find many differences beneath a blond dye job, some facial hair, and a dangerous-looking scar.

“Rangers,” Windu greets the brothers as they approach. They’ve fallen into a formation naturally, the centre brother in front, flanked on either side. 

“Marshal,” the centre brother says, shaking the marshal’s hand. “Ranger Cody Fett, sir,” then gesturing to either side. “Rangers Rex and—”

“Fives, sir,” the one on Cody’s right says with a grin, taking Windu’s hand next. Obi-Wan bites down on his smile when Cody shoots his brother a practiced glare. Windu seems to take it in stride with a marginally amused cast to his usually humourless expression.

“May I introduce my top officers, General Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Lead LOCCENT Mission Controller Plo Koon.” Windu steps aside as he says this, and Obi-Wan forces his shoulders to relax from where they’d been hiking up, plasters on a professional yet genial smile. He reaches forward to shake Cody’s hand.

It falls to Obi-Wan to guide the new rangers around the Dome, and in a very short amount of time, he learns exactly how well the brothers function together, even outside of their Jaeger. They rarely fall out of that initial formation, steps always aligned, unless there’s something major to distract them. The first time, it’s upon entering through the main doors of the hangar from the landing strip and coming face to face with their own Jaeger that the trio broke apart, Fives tripping away to go pat the machine on its giant shoe.

“Did they treat you kindly while we were gone, Tai Mate?” he says, and Rex snorts. Obi-Wan watches Cody take a step back, hands in his coat pockets, and crane his neck upwards to the very top of the Jaeger, like he’s doing a silent assessment of his own on its condition. For some reason, Obi-Wan wants to know if they really are up to Cody’s standards, to see a nod of approval, to be held in high regard.

Instead, what Obi-Wan gets is a terse snap of “Fives,” and a short jerk of Cody’s head to get his brother back in line for the rest of the tour.

They take the lift up to the training rooms, where Obi-Wan shows them the wonders of the near-standardised layout, and across to the mess hall and barracks, becoming increasingly aware of all the rust building up in the corners, the mess of wires and pipes in the open ceilings, the – aging mass of it all.

Self-conscious on behalf of the entire building for the first time in many years, Obi-Wan leans toward Cody while Rex and Fives peer into their assigned rooms. “I’m sure this is all very old news to you three,” he says. Cody blinks at him like this is the first time he’s listened to Obi-Wan speak, despite having heard the whole tour spiel from him for the last twenty minutes.

“It’s,” Cody starts, but then takes a second to consider his words. “We’re happy to be here, General, however similar to the Sydney Dome it may be.”

“Obi-Wan, please,” Obi-Wan says on instinct, before really hearing what Cody just said. He shifts his gaze to somewhere down the hall before settling back on Cody’s. He has exceptionally long eyelashes. Obi-Wan clears his throat. “Are you from Sydney originally, or—?”

Twin noises of disgust sound from the open doorway. Rex says, “Not on your life, mate,” just as Fives says, “No one can ever frickin’ tell the accents apart!” Cody looks patiently back at Obi-Wan and shrugs. “We’re from New Zealand.”

The tour ends with a lift up to the short hallway that leads from the Drivesuit Room to the Tai Mate Conn-Pod. Several technicians are still hovering around the interior of the pod, performing the last checks they need to make sure everything’s operational. Back in the early days of Obi-Wan’s tenure as a general – and even occasionally as a Mission Controller back in Anchorage – he’d been faced with salutes all over the place, caught off-guard by the formality of it all. It had eased off into just courtesy bows from some of the Japanese staff and salutes on mass formal occasions in the last couple of years, partially due to Anakin’s information-spreading among the lower ranks, and partially due to the decrease in formality that naturally ensues once you’ve all been subject to the same day-to-day rigours of Kaiju defense. 

Thus there is no more than a glance or a nod at the singular quiet announcement, “General Kenobi on deck,” the consensus being that getting the job done is more important to all of them than making sure the presence of an authority figure is overly acknowledged. Obi-Wan watches from just inside the pod entrance as the Fett brothers each wander over to their respective pilot rigs. Cody stands by the front left, running a hand over the metal of the rig, Rex just behind at the “extra” arm. Fives, over on the righthand side, squats down to make sure all is correct with the foot pedals.

Within a minute, the technicians pack up their kits and file past Obi-Wan and out to the hall, leaving a lot more free space in the Conn-Pod. He takes this opportunity to move up to the front screen, its hexagonal sections dormant, just waiting to be switched on. He’s not as familiar with this aspect of the Jaeger program as Anakin is, or Qui-Gon would have—

Obi-Wan turns away from the screen; now the tour’s over he has other work to get back to. He doesn’t realize Cody has matched his stride out of the Conn-Pod until he’s reached the lift doors.

“Hey,” Cody says, when Obi-Wan sees him, and suddenly there’s a small bloom of a smile on the man’s face, an expression that really shouldn’t be so surprising to Obi-Wan but manages to catch him so off guard that he almost reaches out to Cody’s arm. Cody hopefully doesn’t notice, as he shifts his weight and begins to say, “I was just wondering—”

The blare of the alarm siren cuts off anything further, and makes them both jump, jolted out of the easiness that had been accumulating over 6 days, 22 hours, however many minutes since the last Kaiju menaced its way out of the breach.

Rex and Fives dash into the hallway – anyone who’s worked at any Shatterdome knows the one thing that this alarm could mean – and with a last glance at Cody only to see his soft smile tense back into professional line, Obi-Wan leaves through the lift. 

It’s an anxious couple of minutes before he makes it into the Control Room, finding Marshal Windu already there, standing just behind Plo where he sits at the main console. The brothers – the _Clones_ , Obi-Wan’s mind supplies somewhat humorously – must have suited up and rigged up quick in the time it took him to get over here; they’re already on comms with Plo. Someone behind him says “General on deck!” Obi-Wan remembers when he was the one flipping all those necessary switches back in Alaska, the fail-safes and the boot-ups and the mech locks, each confirmation read-out flowing down the console in a stream of green.

Plo says, “Securing the Conn-Pod,” and gets three separate affirmatives – Obi-Wan can’t quite tell their voices apart, yet – that they’re ready to drop before a technician radios that the Conn-Pod door lock is secure. Anakin had always given the biggest whoop of delight at the drop of the Conn-Pod onto the body of the Jaeger, describing it to Obi-Wan afterwards as the best theme park ride in the world. There are no similar shouts of excitement to be heard from the Fetts, but it hardly matters whether the drop is fun or not as long as they’re ready to defend against a Kaiju.

Another officer confirms the successful coupling of the Conn-Pod to the rest of the Jaeger, and Obi-Wan turns to Windu. “How many is it?”

“Two category 4’s,” he says gravely, and Obi-Wan props his arm across his chest and strokes a hand over his beard. Windu turns to Plo. “Engage pilot-to-pilot protocol.”

“You’ve already contacted Marshal Yoda,” Obi-Wan says, hoping that this is the case. They can’t take on two with just one Jaeger. The whole situation feels suddenly quite grim, or at least, more than usual.

Tai Mate fires up properly in the hangar space in front of the Control Room window, its core illuminating with energy. Obi-Wan can almost hear Anakin’s voice in his head as he watches, sure that wherever he is in the hangar Anakin is turning to the nearest fellow J-tech saying, “9000 tonnes of pure power!” Although he may not be as obsessed with the mechanics of it, Obi-Wan can admit that seeing it up close is certainly awe-inspiring.

“Support from Hong Kong has been requested, yes,” Windu nods back at Obi-Wan. The waterfront hangar doors lock open with a resounding clang, and Windu says, more quietly, “We might as well call them for every breach from here on out.”

Obi-Wan can understand what Windu isn’t saying outright: they’ll never get another Jaeger ready in time for any next attacks. He leaves his hand over his mouth, not sure that there’s anything he can respond with, and glances back to Plo as he starts the countdown for the neural handshake for the pilots.

“3 . . . 2 . . . 1,” Plo says steadily into the microphone, and then the Tai Mate AI announces, “Neural handshake initiated.”

It’s never silent in the Control Room during a mission, but when the handshake happens, when the read-out of the drift wavers and then catches, the two lines – or three in this case – on the display on their way to holding steady levels, it always evolves into a sort of hum. There’s nothing but a couple quiet breaths that make their way over the comms from the Conn-Pod, and within those couple of seconds of control room hum the drift read-out balances, and Tai Mate is fully online.

“Right hemisphere calibrating,” a staticky voice from Tai Mate says, and it must be Fives if Obi-Wan goes by the rigs he saw the brothers go to. “First left hemisphere calibrating,” Cody says next, followed by Rex with, “Second left calibrating.”

Plo turns to Marshal Windu, flicking the switch for the second microphone. “Good to proceed,” he says.

“Tai Mate,” Windu says, his tone shifted into his official commanding voice. “Your orders are to hold the Hiroshi Nihon Line, do you copy?”

All three copy, in a burst from the comms. Plo leans back to his microphone after an officer relays something in his ear. “All commercial and independent vessels have been alerted to your incoming presence. Be prepared to receive backup from the Jaeger Sentinel Shadow after first engaging the Kaiju.”

The same officer appears next to Windu, holding a tablet. “Marshal Yoda has confirmed Sentinel Shadow is en route from Hong Kong, Marshal.”

“Is there an ETA?” Obi-Wan asks, more for something to say than to really need to know.

“Half an hour at the earliest, sir,” she says, then dashes off to the next task. 

No one tells you about the waiting that comes with a Kaiju attack. There’s still work to be done in that time, to be sure, the noise level in the LOCCENT never lessens, and quiet chatter from the pilots makes its way through the comms every so often, but underneath it all is the slowly building anxiety of having to wait for that first physical encounter. Watching two dots march ever closer to each other on a radar is like watching a kettle come to boil, so Obi-Wan usually brings a tablet to do paperwork on, but this time—it was so sudden, not that it’s not always sudden, but he’s already here with his arms crossed and his shoulders tense, looking at the neural bridge read-out.

The neural bridge read-out that, strangely, seems to waver like loose strands of a twisted thread with nearly every recorded step that Tai Mate makes along the ocean floor. Hadn’t it held level after the handshake? Without making the movement too obvious, Obi-Wan peers at the numbers on the side of the drift display. Eighty percent is . . . well it’s not ideal, but he’s seen worse percentages hold stable. The occasional and inconsistent dips down to sixty-four, sixty, sixty-three, however— those are definitely not good.

Obi-Wan glances at Plo, hesitating on whether to point it out, or to let it sit. They can’t call for assistance from Hong Kong and then turn around and leave them alone in the water with two category 4 Kaiju just because Obi-Wan has a bad feeling about Tai Mate’s neural bridge.

He’s saved from making a decision when Tai Mate buzzes in, “We’ve got eyes on one of them. Gotta say, not a looker.”

There’s a live video feed from one of their helicopters on another screen, and once the shaky camerawork lands on the thing Obi-Wan has to agree. It’s somewhat crocodilian in form, but with much longer limbs and a crest on its head that extends backwards, dark and sharp scutes across its back. Tai Mate slows their pace in the water, approaching slowly and making sure to set their feet properly, so that when the thing does make a move, they won’t lose any ground.

“Second Kaiju incoming,” Plo warns, and in the next breath adds, “Sentinel Shadow making its way over in 6 minutes.”

The second Kaiju is squat and rotund, with sections of its torso actively oozing something rusty-coloured into the water around it. Tai Mate holds position; the brothers are talking over the comms in only bits of answers to unvoiced questions, obviously too used to being in each other’s minds to give anyone outside an idea of the plan. There are already nicknames for the first Kaiju being bandied about in the Control Room behind him, but Obi-Wan can’t lose any focus to the video feed, as it makes a slow slash with one set of huge claws and spiked forearms – blocked by Tai Mate’s right gauntlet – following it up with a blink-and-you-miss-it whip of its absurdly long and sharply pointed tail, aiming for Tai Mate’s left flank. That hit’s blocked too, but only barely in time, and their third arm charges up a palm blast from over Tai Mate’s shoulder, even as they spin to keep the rapid movements of the Kaiju within range.

Even the helicopter camera can’t keep up with it; the second feed shows the other Kaiju, a veritable trash heap of organic material lumbering its way along, low in the water towards Tai Mate, and Obi-Wan grimaces when he sees that the seam of its mouth opens all the way up to its chest, rows and rows of teeth and more of that frothing red liquid on the inside. 

The palm blast goes off, but instead of at its initial target, Tai Mate swings their third arm down to aim it at the second Kaiju, just as it takes a – giant, nauseating, putrid – bite at their leg. The blast hits the Kaiju square in the neck and it rears away, just as Tai Mate blocks another slash from the first, pelting it with small missiles set off from Tai Mate’s right forearm.

“Plague,” one of the LOCCENT officers shouts, no need to indicate which Kaiju the name is for. Windu grips the base of his mic, and relays through it, “Sentinel Shadow is in range, retreat to the north-west just to let them get a shot in with their chest cannon.”

An affirmative echoes back through comms from Tai Mate, and something in Obi-Wan’s chest releases its grip ever so slightly, now that they have backup. He remembers to exhale, shakily blowing out a breath through the fingers over his mouth. He resists looking at the neural bridge read-out for a third time.

Plague gets the brunt of the cannon blast, which is unsurprising given its own size and its partner’s speed. Obi-Wan’s mouth quirks hearing Quinlan’s cheer over the comms, but it’s wiped away with another burst of speed from the first Kaiju towards Tai Mate. They lock into a defensive posture, even though the front left arm is mid-conversion into its own blaster, and brace against a full-body slam. It slides them back however many metres before they can get a footing again, and Tai Mate manages to grab the Kaiju and twist to the side to swing it around and get some distance again.

Sentinel Shadow seems to be faring well against Plague by the looks of things; multiple wounds from their cannons already ripped through much of the beast’s thick neck. Obi-Wan will have to remind himself to send a note to Quinlan after this, ask him how he found the Hong Kong summer after languishing in the chill of Anchorage for so long.

He’s jarred out of his thoughts by the shared gasp that echoes around the Control Room, and he looks back at the feed to find out what happened. Tai Mate seems to be reeling from a landed hit, their opponent raising up its tail in preparation for a dangerous downward stab. Just as Obi-Wan reflexively glances at the neural bridge read-out, the Kaiju manages to smack Tai Mate as they’re recovering upright, hitting them hard in the side of the Conn-Pod on its way up. The neural bridge read-out doesn’t just blip from the impact, it splits fully apart, wrenched into three distinct lines for more than a second too long, before finally, sluggishly, falling back into line together, the percentage on the display now flickering between seventy-five and seventy-six.

Obi-Wan consciously unclenches his jaw, and drags his eyes back to the video feed. Within that awful period of time staring aghast at Tai Mate’s drift, Sentinel Shadow was thankfully able to dispose of Plague, and with Tai Mate ostensibly recovered, they can focus both their efforts on defeating – apparently the team in Hong Kong has called it Ventress. How on Earth they decided on that is a mystery which Obi-Wan can’t care about right now.

It feels like it only takes thirty more seconds but it could have been thirty minutes for all Obi-Wan could tell. After getting knocked around so much, Tai Mate’s left arm finally charges its blast, and once it’s two-on-one, Ventress is done for, finally collapsing after Tai Mate’s attack into the water with a crunch from Sentinel Shadow’s arm shield. The Control Room is as celebratory as they can be at this far along in the Breach’s existence, but any victory is a good victory, and there might be an end in sight soon. 

Obi-Wan watches Tai Mate go still in the water for a second, just before the video feed cuts off, and tries to imagine what it’s like in that Conn-Pod right now. Tries to reconfigure those three brothers he only just met earlier this morning into what he knows now. Windu puts a hand on his and Plo’s shoulders as he takes his exit, and Obi-Wan knows he needs to go too, to meet with the officers in charge of post-mission detail, to do the paperwork building up on his tablet, to finish the thousand other jobs on his list. All he can manage is one last look at the neural bridge read-out, then Plo is standing from his chair and asking if he can treat Obi-Wan to lunch.

“All our lunches are free,” Obi-Wan says half-heartedly, but he leaves with Plo anyway, a J-tech officer sliding into the seat to man Tai Mate’s trip back and shut down. Disquiet curls unpleasantly in Obi-Wan’s chest on his way to the lift, a bad feeling that warns him that something needs to change, and fast.

***

Obi-Wan finds Anakin down in sub-bay 4 in the evening, in the bowels of the basement-Jaeger. A year ago he’d fashioned himself a sort of sling-like rappelling rope in order to fully ignore the much safer moveable scaffolding, and to give Obi-Wan a heart attack every time Anakin swings himself over to a hard-to-reach mechanism. He pulls himself up one-armed to the mezzanine platform where Obi-Wan is, roughly level with the Jaeger’s ribcage.

“What’s up?” he says, wiping his hand on a kerchief on his belt. “I saw the mission went well this morning.”

Now that he’s here, though, Obi-Wan can’t figure out a way to voice his worries in a way that will convey how much his hands are tied. He starts on a parallel track.

“How is the re-fit coming along?” he asks. Anakin lights up at the question immediately.

“It’s great!” he says. “I put in one of her new leg engines the other day and I think, with the right tweaking I could drastically decrease the torque involved, and get more power at the same time.” Obi-Wan nods along, pleased that at least something’s working well for either of them. Anakin rambles for a bit about turbines and microprocessors until something suddenly distracts him, mid-sentence. “Hey, do you think one of the Clones would be able to answer a few questions about their palm blaster? I know a few upgrades I could do that would really make it pop.”

Obi-Wan frowns at the nickname for the Fetts, but takes the opportunity he’s given. “Actually, Anakin, I meant to ask – did you notice anything about Tai Mate during the mission that seemed, well, sort of _off_?”

Anakin instantly adopts a professional look, eyes wandering to the side as he thinks about it. With a hum, he says “Apart from the palm blaster upgrade, and maybe a re-shape of the stomacher shell, there’s not much to fix.” He eyes Obi-Wan and adjusts how his ankles are hooked around the mezzanine railing. “Why do you ask?”

Obi-Wan hesitates. If no one else seemed to notice, not even a spectacular pilot-turned-J-tech, then he truly is loathe to bring anything up at all. As soon as the Shatterdome officials know there’s a problem, it will mean disassembling the Ranger team that literally just arrived. It will mean leaving Tokyo, the whole Hiroshi Nihon Line, in fact, without any form of Jaeger defense, and it will mean creating more problems for Obi-Wan and Windu and Plo to deal with, not to mention the team at the Hong Kong Dome who will have to manage the resulting load. Ultimately, it will mean the worst kind of ending for everyone who’s had a stake in combatting the Kaiju from the start.

Anakin punches him in the arm. “Stop spiralling. What did you notice about Tai Mate?”

Obi-Wan looks at him and sees that young Ranger again, an ace pilot ready to take on anything in his way, and blows out a giant breath. “I’d have to double check with the logs of course,” he starts, glancing at Anakin for moment before focussing on a spot on the basement-Jaeger in front of him. He runs through different phrasings in his head before landing on, “During the mission, the read-outs seemed to infer a slight difficulty in piloting.”

Only when Anakin is silent for too long does Obi-Wan finally look at him out of the corner of his eye. Anakin just stares back, an unimpressed tilt to his brow.

“Are you gonna give me a less politically strategic explanation?” he asks.

Obi-Wan blusters, “Anakin—”

“Fine, fine,” Anakin says, unbothered, unhooking his ankles completely and starting to swing back toward the Jaeger, momentum caught only by his hand on top of the rail. “If you’re having ‘slight difficulties’, I could always come back to piloting, if the Marshal needs—”

“Absolutely not,” Obi-Wan says instantly, shutting him down. A recognizable tightness appears around Anakin’s mouth, but Obi-Wan holds firm. Doesn’t look at where Anakin’s right arm should be. “I can’t let you do that, Anakin. You know this.”

Anakin holds his gaze for one last, long moment, and then releases his grip, rappel-sling swinging him all the way back to the Jaeger’s torso. Obi-Wan is so averse to leaving on this kind of note, but he doubts saying anything further helps better than leaving Anakin alone with his repairs will. He chews on his lip on the mezzanine platform, watching Anakin disappear behind the steel plating of the Jaeger’s chest until he walks back to the lift.

He finds Cody in the topmost stairwell on the barracks side of the Dome, perched on a step with a phone to his ear. The usual charades commence when Cody notices him, to convey that Obi-Wan should stay where he is while Cody finishes his call, and Obi-Wan retreats down to the lower flight to at least maintain the pretense of giving Cody some privacy. He struggles to focus on the dark purpling light coming in through the window at the top of the stairwell instead of actively listening to what Cody’s saying to the other person on the phone, but, of course, it’s impossible not to.

“I know, Kix, they’ll call tomorrow.” A pause, and then Cody huffs a breath. “Because it’s late for you there—c’mon, don’t tell me that, I’ll get an ulcer.” Another pause, then, “Okay, love you too. Tell mum for me, then. Bye.” Obi-Wan stares at the first of the stars coming out and tries to ignore how he can hear the smile in Cody’s voice.

Obi-Wan waits a couple seconds after he hears Cody stand and shuffle his phone away into a pocket before rounding the stairs again. He ends up looking upwards at a higher angle than he expected; Cody’s got a hand on the door to the Dome roof. He jerks his head at the door, and asks, “Is there an alarm on this?”

Wide-eyed for some reason but unable to shake the feeling off, Obi-Wan says, “Probably,” but ascends the stairs anyways and motions for Cody to push it open. They both wait a second in the doorway, just in case, but then Cody quirks the corner of his mouth and they’re walking out onto the slight slant of the roof. If there’s a silent alarm going off in the security centre then it’s someone else’s problem for now.

The slight chill of the night instantly cuts through Obi-Wan’s jacket, and he feels suddenly very old. Like an old man thirty-something who needs to sit indoors by a space heater, not walk out onto roofs in the late evening. They both sit down to a view of the harbour, the little lights on the boats coming to shore blinking brightly in the encroaching dark as the sun sets behind them. He feels Cody look at him from the side and meets his gaze there.

“That was my brother,” Cody says, then corrects himself. “Another brother, he’s back in Christchurch.”

Obi-Wan pauses, running some numbers. “How many of you are there?”

“Too many,” Cody laughs. A train rumbles past somewhere behind the Dome. “A bunch of us, some of our cousins too, are over at the Sydney Dome, too. We’re the only three that got into piloting though.”

Obi-Wan hums. He tries to imagine even more of the same kind of face, just at slightly different ages, in slightly different contexts, and ends up accidentally staring at the side of Cody’s face for too long. He traces the line of his scar with his eyes, how it curls around his brow unevenly. Obi-Wan shouldn’t ask how Cody got it, but knowing what he learned during today’s mission, he has to marvel a little at this man’s perseverance.

“We never heard you on the comms,” Cody says quietly. “I thought. As a general and all – maybe we missed it.”

“No, I never spoke,” Obi-Wan assures him. “The marshal was there to say everything necessary, and Plo is really the one in charge of relaying things to you during missions.”

“I see.” Cody turns back to the harbour, and then yawns into his fist. “Sorry. Sometimes I feel like I’m aging twice as fast as I should be,” he says with a laugh. Obi-Wan can commiserate; everything about Kaiju is exhausting; waiting for them, fighting them, stopping them.

“I had something I needed to ask you,” Obi-Wan says, and then pauses. Cody turns to him again, but Obi-Wan is abruptly struck by how close they are, how casual the setting is despite his uniform, despite the mission that concluded only hours ago. He had thought to try the same slightly obfuscated approach to the topic as he had with Anakin but can’t bring himself to do that this time. There’s no way to talk around something that important with the man it’s actually happening to.

Obi-Wan shifts so he’s better facing him. “I noticed during the mission, your – Tai Mate’s – neural link.” He watches Cody’s face and sees the pleasant yet tired expression turn to one of stone. A realisation blooms. “You knew.”

Cody looks away stiffly, but Obi-Wan has to say this. “There’s something wrong with your drift, Cody. You understand this has severe repercussions.”

Everything he needed to say finally said, Obi-Wan lets Cody have his silence. He looks out at the harbour, barely anything visible now except for the illuminated docks. He shivers, and just as he thinks he should go back inside, Cody speaks.

“It was just off the west coast of Fiji, about a year, year and a half ago now. The Kaiju – they named it Inhibitor, afterwards – it basically split us in half, cut right through the middle of the Conn-Pod.” He says it all so quietly and evenly that Obi-Wan could just as well be listening to Cody recite a grocery list. Obi-Wan has to lean in slightly just to hear the next words. “It affected Fives the most out of all of us. He had to—” and here Cody stops, taking a shaky inhale.

Obi-Wan desperately wants to comfort him but he doesn’t know how; he was the one who had to bring all this up in the first place. “It’s fine,” he says, but it comes out hoarsely.

Cody nods, and then puts his head in his hands, elbows propped on his knees. “We can all feel it, each time we drift. The connection is just—just disintegrating in our hands and we can’t stop it.” He dares a look to the side, and Obi-Wan sees a wet sheen in his eyes. The light over the stairwell door starkly defines the scar on Cody’s temple.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan starts to say, but Cody straightens up and cuts him off.

“I know if we retire then we leave you all in the lurch,” he says. “I know it’s bad, general, but we can hold it for a little while longer. At least until the breach is destroyed,” he tries to joke, but it’s a little too off-balance. He seems resolved in this, and maybe they’re both just desperate enough to cling onto hope for as long as they can. Obi-Wan hesitates on the edge of decision, trying to weigh out each option logically, but he keeps getting distracted by the deep brown of Cody’s eyes, and how much determination lies within them.

Cody’s expression softens, then, just a fraction. “Please, Obi-Wan,” he says, and Obi-Wan’s mind makes itself up.

“Alright,” he says, and clears his throat. “Alright. But you know I can’t—if you overdo it and the link collapses, then we’re done for—”

“I know, sir,” Cody says, and Obi-Wan wishes he’d say his name again instead. “That’s why we’ll help you find your new Rangers. You must have at least some good cadets, right?”

Obi-Wan instantly thinks of Ahsoka, somewhere downstairs dreaming of piloting a Jaeger and fighting just to be considered for the position. “Right,” he says, and they shake on it, sitting there on the roof and slowly freezing their joints stiff. A boat horn sounds distantly off the water, and Obi-Wan thinks maybe they do have a chance.


	2. Chapter 2

It perhaps was not the most wise idea to suggest meeting over breakfast, considering how packed the mess hall always is in the morning, especially the day after an attack. After jostling through a crowd of J-techs, trying and failing to catch Anakin’s eye as he squeezes by, Obi-Wan sets down his bowl of egg over rice and the fish he missed out on yesterday in the open spot next to Cody. He immediately knocks elbows with the K-Science officer on his other side, and has to shift sideways to bring his spoon to his mouth with no hassle.

Rex puts his elbows on the table and eyes Obi-Wan over his plate of eggs. “We know the plan, and think it’s a good one.”

“There must be at least a couple cadets you had in mind already,” Fives pipes up. Obi-Wan tries not to let his gaze linger; even the somewhat vague knowledge of their past that Cody gave him last night is already weighing on his perception of the brothers, especially Fives.

He swallows his bite. “There is an ideal candidate, yes. We can go up and catch the end of this morning’s training session to see her.” Cody opens his mouth to say something but Obi-Wan holds up a hand. “I have to warn you all that the situation is a little more complex than you may be thinking.”

Rex huffs. “We’re pretty used to complex, aren’t we,” he says, and Cody and Fives nod knowingly.

They take the lift across the hangar to the training rooms, and thankfully it’s empty apart from them. “It’s become apparent that Ahsoka can’t quite drift with anyone,” Obi-Wan explains. “Any time we’ve tried, it’s either it’s an issue of her physical skill far surpassing her fellows, or it’s an unintentional mental constraint on the interpersonal compatibility required.”

Fives nods soberly. “And you can’t just put her in a round robin of drift tests with every other cadet.”

“Way too much for the mind,” Rex agrees. Obi-Wan guides them all out of the lift, or at least Rex and Fives; Cody is only just turning away from the back corner when Obi-Wan looks over his shoulder, and the living-picture of Cody against the glistening backdrop of the entire hangar freezes in Obi-Wan’s mind for a single second. He catches himself in the middle of lifting his hand, unsure what he was about to do with it, but soon Cody is there next to him, and Obi-Wan shakes the thought from his head.

They catch up to Rex and Fives just outside the doors to the Combat Room. “I likely don’t have to tell you this, but the—our _plan_ , as it were, should be kept somewhat secret,” Obi-Wan says. “Classified.”

“On the DL, gotcha,” Fives says with a smirk, at the same time Cody says, “Naturally.” Cody raises his eyes to the ceiling with a sigh.

On the pretense of giving a more thorough tour, just in case Luminara is still there and asks, Obi-Wan leads the brothers inside the double doors. Most of the cadets are cooling down, either stretching on the mats or heading off to the showers, but Obi-Wan spots Ahsoka doing pushups in the corner of the room, and surreptitiously points her out to the Fetts. They all seem to accept this one-sided introduction, and then look expectantly at Obi-Wan.

“Oh, fine,” he says, tugging on the cuffs of his jacket sleeves as he makes his way around the mats. When he gets close enough to hear, Ahsoka’s counting reps with each breath. Obi-Wan’s slightly impressed by the number.

“General!” one of the other cadets says on the way to the locker room door, giving him a mid-step quasi-salute. It startles Ahsoka into a hurried roll onto her feet.

“Didn’t see you there,” she says, wiping her hands on her leggings. Obi-Wan waves off any incoming apology, but Ahsoka just continues with a smile. “Did you come for that spar? I forgive you for not stopping by yesterday, there was a lot going . . . on . . .” Her sentence drifts off into an awestruck expression when she notices who else has paid a visit to the Combat Room. “Wow,” she says as the Fetts finally take their cue to come over. “You really are like clones!”

Despite how uncomfortable the comment makes even Obi-Wan feel, the brothers seem fine to accept the comparison with a laugh. Rex holds out his hand. “We heard you were good at combat.”

Ahsoka’s eyes light up. It’s a little more forward than Obi-Wan was intending in his plan, but it appears to work just as well. “Care to give us a match? Perhaps we can call one of your cohort over,” he says.

“Hey, Barriss!” Ahsoka calls, and soon enough the two girls are settling into their ready positions on the mat, staffs held aloft, ready to go until someone gets 4 points. Cadet Offee is the closest to Ahsoka in terms of skill, and Obi-Wan is a little relieved that she’s the one lingering behind enough to be a part of their test. They start off high-energy, clearly so used to training together that they can each predict one another’s next moves well enough. Cody watches with eagle eyes and a tense jaw, and Rex is much the same, but Fives follows along like he’s watching a football match, vocally expressing his amazement at nearly every hit.

When the score is 2-2, Ahsoka manages to plant her feet wide and swipe her staff quick at ankle-height, not waiting for the hit to either land or miss before pushing up and forward. Offee’s hijab is close-fitting enough that it doesn’t catch on Ahsoka’s strike past her neck, but it’s a near thing, and it’s only one more clash of staffs between them until Ahsoka catches Offee’s unwitting opening, her staff halting just in time to tap Offee’s left side.

Likely out of frustration more than fatigue, Offee continues to leave openings for the next two points, whereas Ahsoka only gets better and better. Each move is quick and confident, and Offee’s reaction times slow down enough that she is constantly put on the defense, barely catching the next blow until it’s too late.

Ahsoka gives her a hug afterwards, and with a stiff smile Offee shelves her staff and leaves for the showers. Obi-Wan glances at the brothers when Ahsoka cheerily asks, “Who’s next?” only to see that they’ve managed to decide amongst themselves already. Cody steps barefoot onto the mat, having already left his shoes at the edge.

He looks to Obi-Wan, however, his expression open and inviting, and it takes a moment for Obi-Wan to realise what he should be doing. “Right. Ahsoka,” he says. “I had hoped to use the advent of the Fetts to see if we can find a way to graduate you to Ranger status.” He looks away from her sharp smile, back to Cody. “It’s just to see how you do with some new faces, for now.” He doesn’t want to give her more hope than he can truly promise, but this is as much of his plan as he’s willing to divulge to her right now.

She appears not to mind. “Sure,” she says. “I can work with that.”

The spar commences much more gradually than it had with Offee; both are unfamiliar with each other’s technique but Cody at least had the advantage of seeing Ahoska fight already, so it’s he who makes the first testing move, a basic strike set which Ahoska blocks easily. They slowly circle around after Cody finishes and backs off, but in a flash Ahsoka is leaping close to Cody’s left flank, bringing her staff around to hit him somewhere around the kidneys. Or that would be where it would hit, if Cody hadn’t already spun around, a short concise movement bringing his staff down to tap the back of Ahsoka’s leg. She doesn’t wilt under the initial loss, though, only steps back into her starting stance with a grin.

“Classic Cody move,” Fives says appreciatively under his breath, just loud enough for Obi-Wan to hear. “She’ll try to use it against him before the end, I’m betting you.”

“Not taking that bet,” Rex says smartly. Obi-Wan wouldn’t either; Ahsoka’s equal parts curious and crafty, and unable to not try a new move that someone has successfully used against her.

Another point for Cody – he manages to catch Ahsoka from behind again on one of her more reckless attempts – and Ahsoka decides to hang back, apparently ready for Cody to initiate the next strike. He’s very different from Offee against Ahsoka, naturally, but it’s not just due to their differences in build and experience. He has a relaxed way of making each block, strike, and transition flow seamlessly into the next, as if he’s already planned ahead for an incomparable number of moves.

Cody stamps hard on the mat on his next forward strike. Obi-Wan can also recognize the benefits to having such a robust build, especially with someone as lithe as Ahsoka for a sparring partner. Cody’s able to put an easy amount of strength behind not only his hits but his blocks as well, and it makes for an impressive sight. Ahsoka has no choice but to try to move around him, rather than through.

And she finally does, a moment later, bending back onto her hands and dislodging Cody’s staff from his own with a solid upward kick of her foot. The staff goes tumbling off to the edge of the mat, and before Cody can recover from being disarmed, Ahsoka whirls around to touch the end of her staff to Cody’s stomach. Cody looks more proud than surprised at this turn of events, and something like hope flutters in Obi-Wan’s chest.

“Nice one, Snips!” Anakin calls from behind them.

As one, they all turn to the door to see Anakin, the top half of his J-tech boilersuit tied around his waist, revealing the shiny chrome of his right arm under a standard white Shatterdome t-shirt. Obi-Wan’s about to ask why he could possibly need to be here in the training rooms, but Ahsoka speaks first.

“Skyguy! Did you see that?” She graciously retrieves Cody’s staff for him as she hops over the mats to talk to Anakin.

Rex turns to Obi-Wan. “Is he another Ranger?” he asks, with genuine inquiry. Obi-Wan crosses his arms, tries not to let a frown show through. At a short distance, Ahsoka asks if Anakin wants to spar.

“No, he’s not,” Obi-Wan says to Rex, and then he’s marching over to Anakin. “And no, you don’t. Don’t argue—”

“Come _on_ , Obi-Wan!” Anakin says, most of his exasperation giving way to acute irritation now. “You won’t even let me—”

“You only have one arm, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. He knows instantly that it’s a poor argument to use.

“Oh really? I hadn’t noticed,” Anakin says stiffly, waving his prosthetic. Someone coughs awkwardly behind them.

Suddenly all too aware of their audience, Obi-Wan lowers his voice. “How can you possibly fight—”

“Let me do this and I’ll show you exactly how I can fight!” Anakin raises his own voice even more, and Obi-Wan heaves a sigh. He can’t do this.

“Why don’t you spar with me instead, general?” Ahsoka says, courageously intervening. Her attempt at alleviating the tension proves successful, though, Anakin rolling his eyes and backing off to the doorway. Obi-Wan swallows his own frustration, shrugs off his uniform jacket and grudgingly bends to remove his shoes.

He allows Cody to give him his staff as he positions himself in the centre of the mats, taking a second to roll up his shirtsleeves. It’s been a long while since he’s done this, but he feels his own weight shift into a wide, practiced stance, his muscles remembering for him.

Ideally he would not be wearing his uniform trousers for this, but he manages to move as best he can despite their restrictive tailoring. He automatically goes on the defensive; Ahsoka is finally tiring from all the training they’ve put her through, but Obi-Wan refrains from leaping on the increasingly frequent openings in her attacks. Instead he hangs back, circling and blocking over and over, feet just fast enough on the mats to keep out of Ahsoka’s true striking range.

He can tell that her impatience is growing, however; when he finally does make a diagonal lunge forward she’s caught off-guard, but more eager than surprised. He pulls his hit before it lands, though, more concerned with accidentally hurting her than testing her skills against his own.

“Come on, old man,” Ahsoka says on the next swing of her staff, and then her eyes widen, suddenly remembering the rank of who she just teased, but Obi-Wan just huffs out a laugh. He’s been called much worse by Anakin over the years. He takes advantage of her pause to bring his staff around, tapping it on the side of her ribcage.

“Damn,” she says, and then, “Thanks, general. Good fight.”

“You as well, Ahsoka,” he concedes with a smile. When he looks back at the room only the Fetts are there, Anakin apparently having left during the spar.

Fives is enthusiastic, to say the least. “Are you sure you’re not a Ranger? Those were some moves,” he says, eyes alight.

“Certainly not,” Obi-Wan says, ducking his head, but not before he catches the look on Cody’s face, his cheeks red, mouth agape. Was he really that rusty, to leave practicing pilots in shock? It’s been at least a couple months since he last had the chance to spar. Maybe he ought to just leave it to the professionals from now on, if even this amount of fighting leaves them so embarrassed.

Obi-Wan makes sure to thank Ahsoka, ushering her along to the showers she’s probably desperate for by now, and then puts on his shoes, tucking his jacket under his arm on his way out the door. “I have a meeting,” he calls over his shoulder to the brothers, the trio left standing together in the empty room.

If Windu notices the sweat by Obi-Wan’s temples from the spar, then he doesn’t mention it. He does, however, mention the one thing Obi-Wan had thought they’d at least manage to keep secret for more than a couple hours.

“Any luck testing the cadets?” Windu says, glancing down briefly at the jacket in Obi-Wan’s arms. Obi-Wan tries to demur.

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to?” he says, although it accidentally comes out like a question. He puts his jacket over the back of a nearby chair, and Windu stares him down while he does it, not giving so much as an inch. Obi-Wan purses his lips. “Cadet Tano is still the top choice. We tried her against one of the Fett brothers today just to see, but there might be a bit of an adjustment period.” Obi-Wan considers asking how Windu could possibly have found out so soon, but he’d likely never reveal his sources.

“Any chance we’ll see you in a drivesuit soon, Kenobi?” Windu has the tiniest sly smile poking at the corner of his lips. Obi-Wan tries to use his own medicine against him, attempting a flat glare. He doubts it has nearly the same impact, seeing as how Windu’s smile gets bigger.

“Very well,” Windu says. “Keep me apprised of the situation, then.” He picks up a dossier from one of the command tables, but places it back down again, gaining a contemplative look. “I once had to choose between piloting and command, some years before the first Kaiju,” he says, eyes focussed somewhere down on his hand on top of the file. “It was not a difficult decision at the time, but with the perspective that age has lent me since, I can appreciate the occupational flexibility I had then.”

Obi-Wan shifts his weight. “With all due respect, I’m closer to your age now than to yours before the Kaiju,” he says cautiously.

Windu finally looks up at him, something in his expression very close to paternal. “Just be aware of all possible paths,” he says.

The thing is that Obi-Wan has almost the opposite problem that Windu seems to think he has. He feels too aware of all the possibilities of a situation, each unfolding wave that comes with a decision bringing forth exponentially branching pathways inside it. Obi-Wan has always tried to consider his choices fully, but the reality is that he must always keep some part of himself completely focussed on the present tasks to be done, otherwise he’ll end up like how he was at the end of his time in Anchorage – slowly breaking into little pieces.

A welcome voice emanates from outside the open Command Centre doors, and Obi-Wan steps away from the table just as Padmé enters. He can’t remember if this addition to his meeting was on his schedule as well as Windu’s, but it only seems appropriate that he stay to hear her report when she turns to give him a nod as well as to the marshal.

“Sirs,” she says, pleasant but all business. “I just got word from the Hong Kong K-Sci cohort that they successfully recovered the remains of the last Kaiju – Ventress, I believe,” she adds with a quirk of her brows. “I’ll report back with their findings once they send them along. In the mean time—” She plugs a drive into the table console and a holo-display appears. It’s a combination of 3D images, one of the breach and one of the basic schematics for the weapon they presumably intend to throw down there. A couple lines of code run down at the very bottom.

“The engineering team have provided the latest details on the—the bomb,” she says, voice catching over the last words. Obi-Wan stares determinedly at the holo-display. “They included some schematics and calculations as well, but I believe they have everything under control at this point, so going over that is not a priority.”

She flicks a button on the console, and the display changes to a line graph, accompanied by some complicated equations. “As for my own work, I made some models.” Padmé pauses a moment, collecting herself, and Obi-Wan finally looks away from the display to her face. She’s worn her hair pulled back in a tight bun for as long as he’s known her, but every time he looks at her he’s reminded of the picture he saw during their digital presence checks just before they hired her. She had been dressed in an elaborate costume, a remarkably extravagant thing with an equally ornate headdress, her hair looped through coils and tied around itself in intricate knots. He’d realized later that obviously it wasn’t her actual hair, but there was something about seeing the stark difference between that vision from her past and the current embodiment of semi-military composure.

“There’s a high probability of a simultaneous decrease in the time between each Kaiju emergence, increase in the number of Kaiju involved in each breach, and increase in Kaiju category,” she says, admirably steady-voiced throughout the deliverance of this, frankly devastating news. Obi-Wan covers more of his mouth with his hand, and a glance to Windu reveals the marshal’s own tense jaw and narrowed eyes. The worst part is that it’s not even that surprising.

Windu recovers first. “We’ve been expecting an increase in events for some time, if I remember the statistics you presented last year, Dr. Amidala,” he says. Padmé nods, almost in sympathy. 

“All the more reason to coordinate an attack as soon as possible,” Obi-Wan says, letting his hand drop. Windu and Padmé end up finishing the rest of the meeting almost by themselves, Obi-Wan too caught up in thinking about how soon the next Kaiju will emerge, how many ways they could counter any number of possible body forms and adaptations.

He goes about the rest of the day as if a curtain of fog has settled over him, Padmé’s words echoing in his head. It feels impossible to contain the two pieces of knowledge; they have a plan to destroy the breach at the same time that the breach is planning to finally destroy them. And the Kaiju will destroy them, if given the proper chance. Obi-Wan can honestly and soberly acknowledge that they will not be able to survive anything much greater than what the breach can spit out at them currently.

It is this thought which eats away at him throughout the remaining hours of the day, while he checks in with publicity officers about the yesterday’s attack; with the construction head on the C-Wing repairs; with the contract managers on Shatterdome staff updates. He is responsible for so much of the well-being of the occupants of this Dome, and yet it is this looming aspect of his rank that he can’t control which is cause for greatest concern. If Obi-Wan had any free time to become demoralised then it would certainly have happened by now.

Obi-Wan collapses into a late dinner in the mess hall, his stomach rumbling with irritation at the single protein bar he had time for in the early afternoon. At least he had breakfast, and as if the mere thought of the Fetts let them materialise out of thin air, Cody sits down across from Obi-Wan with his own plate of curry and rice.

Obi-Wan lowers his spoon and takes a glance around. “Just you?”

“Just me,” Cody says neutrally, apparently more focussed on his dinner right now than much else. Obi-Wan follows his lead, and some silent minutes ensue. It’s almost peaceful, sharing a quiet, unobtrusive meal in the slowly emptying mess hall, and is approaching the sort of restful calm that he hadn’t quite been able to achieve after this morning.

When he’s scraped up the last of his dinner, Obi-Wan finally dares to speak. “Your brothers are off somewhere without you?” he asks. He refuses to react to the awkwardness in his own voice, like he doesn’t know how to talk to people anymore, as if that’s not ninety-percent of his job.

Cody puts down his water. “They’re probably in the barracks, calling home like they should’ve done yesterday,” he says. He makes an inscrutable face for a second, then, “Do you have—I mean, is there anyone, uh.” Cody frowns, then makes a wry smile. “Nevermind, I shouldn’t ask.”

Nonetheless, Obi-Wan finds himself matching the smile. “If you’re asking what I think you’re asking, then no, not really,” he says. Cody frowns again. “The closest to family I have is Anakin, he’s a—you met him this morning, the J-tech who wandered in.”

Cody hums. One of the rowdier groups of officers finally makes their way out of the mess, their raucous laughter echoing down the hall to the barracks, and a quiet settles over the room in their wake. Cody lays a hand on the table, just to the side of his plate, and says, “If I may ask, sir.”

The formality is still surprising; one would think that all they’ve revealed to each other in only two days would mitigate the urge for polite address, but who knows. Maybe this is just how Cody is. “Go ahead,” Obi-Wan says, leaning back in his chair.

“Why were you so adamant that he not spar with us today?” Cody drops his gaze, straightens his tray on the table. “Even if he is your only family, it was just us. Nothing dangerous.”

Obi-Wan allows himself a second to exhale through his nose, let his hands unclench under the table. “He used to be a Ranger, until the 2020 Anchorage attack. Keeping him out of the way of anything pilot-related is just the easiest way to make sure he never goes through something like that again.” Obi-Wan pauses, and then adds, “It’s how he lost his arm.” His voice is tense, and the words come out more rigidly than they really should.

“Yeah, I kinda figured that one out,” Cody says. He leans an elbow on the table.

“It was more than that,” Obi-Wan says. “We were still up at the Anchorage Dome, where I was LOCCENT Mission Controller.” He lays a weighted look on Cody then, just to see if he connects the dots. It only takes a couple seconds, Cody’s eyes glancing away in thought before his lips form a tight line and he looks back at Obi-Wan.

But his next words weren’t the ones Obi-Wan was expecting. “Who was the other pilot, then?” Cody asks.

Obi-Wan had been Mission Controller for a while before it happened, and in the end it was what spurred his long-awaited promotion to general anyway. But all throughout the process afterwards, Obi-Wan had wondered why exactly he was being promoted for actions taken during a mission that went so incredibly wrong, a mission that had succeeded in one aspect but had so deeply failed in another. He had almost expected to be relegated to Control Instructor, or some other equivalent scholastic position as consolation—and yet.

“My father,” Obi-Wan manages, just above a whisper. “He died. Of course,” he adds, as if it were not very obvious already, or recorded somewhere in Pan-Pacific Defense Corps. history all in detached, professional language.

Cody seems a little embarrassed when Obi-Wan looks up from his own hands, and he’s halfway to saying something like ‘it’s fine,’ until Cody succinctly says, “I’m sorry,” and then, “My father’s gone too. The 2015 Auckland attack.”

Obi-Wan pauses. “I see,” he says. The Jaeger program had been launched that year, but in the beginning stages was little real help against Kaiju attacks. The Auckland event had been a shock; so many things were still being figured out, and so many lives had been lost before anyone realized how to get a handle on piloting properly, let alone actually and efficiently defeating the monsters.

“We moved down to Christchurch after,” Cody says, matter of fact. “Closer to mum’s family, you know.”

Obi-Wan nods, even though he barely does know. He can only imagine a young Cody, and even younger Rex and Fives all taking the trauma of losing their father like that, and turning it into a drive to Ranger-hood, an active defense against that which took from them. Obi-Wan says as much, pushing his plate out of the way on the table, clasping his hands on the cheap laminate of the tabletop.

“Yeah, we—we really got it into our heads that it was the only way to do right by his memory,” Cody says. His lips tilt, though, twitch to the side and his brow furrows, and he says, “If that makes any sense, I don’t know.”

“No, no, it does,” Obi-Wan says. Cody’s looking away again, his scar out of sight and the strong line of his nose in semi-profile. “You did pretty well on that front, I’d say.”

Cody looks up at Obi-Wan from under his lashes. “Yeah?” he says, and Obi-Wan’s stomach clenches. Thankfully Cody continues, saying, “We definitely were up there with the best of them for a while.” His usage of the past-tense is a fairly stark reminder of their current dilemma, but the mood doesn’t sink as much as it might. Instead, Obi-Wan almost feels like following the tug of this current forming between them, something about the way he finds himself following the delineations of Cody’s face each time he has the chance.

Naturally, Obi-Wan means to respond in kind but stalls when Cody’s expression turns to one of alarm, eyes widening, his hand twitching in an abortive gesture on the table. “Your—are you okay?” Cody says.

“What? I—” Obi-Wan’s right arm chooses this moment to seize as well, so his nose must be bleeding, too, and he grimaces, hissing at the sudden pain of it. He wrangles a napkin out of somewhere, dabbing uselessly at his moustache while his right hand clenches around nothing. With no small amount of annoyance some back part of his brain wishes this might have held off until after their conversation had reached a more natural conclusion, but there’s no helping it now, not while he’s bleeding all over the place and scrabbling against the tabletop, his right elbow refusing to cooperate.

“My apologies,” he tries to say through the napkin, shifting around so that his right arm has nowhere to go except off the table, except—that’s Cody’s hand landing on top of his own, the spasms already lessening under the warm weight of it. “Oh,” he says, avoiding Cody’s knitted brow by tilting his head back. The towering ceiling looks dusty as ever.

A thumb rubs over the back of Obi-Wan’s palm, and his skin tingles with it. “Have you ever piloted a Jaeger?” Cody asks.

“No?” Obi-Wan says, tilting his face back down. The bleeding seems to have stopped, and his arm is gradually loosening again. He wiggles a finger.

“This can’t be from radiation, then,” Cody says, because of course that’s what he would think of first. A Shatterdome official as old as Obi-Wan could very well have spent sufficient time around the older nuclear-powered models, and suffered the lasting effects of piloting one.

“Oh no, it’s not that,” Obi-Wan reassures. He can move his shoulder again, and Cody easily releases his hand when Obi-Wan starts to pull it back. “It’s –nothing. This just happens sometimes, I—you know,” he says awkwardly, like he’s never uttered an excuse in his life.

Cody eyes him, though, worry plain in his eyes. “You’ll be fine?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says firmly. After everything that’s managed to squeeze itself into this entire, arduous day, Obi-Wan hopes that for once he can agree that he’s fine and really mean it.

***

Obi-Wan arrives at the Combat Room just as Rex steps onto the mat opposite Ahsoka. Fives and Cody and even Offee and a couple other cadets are spaced around the sidelines already, focussed on the two fighters falling into ready positions. Although slightly younger than Cody, Rex is still of a very similar build to him, and Obi-Wan can’t tell if their starting positions are the same because it’s efficient for their fight styles, or if it’s because they’ve been drifting together for so long that these things have just coalesced into the same sort of shape through shared patterns of the mind.

A shared pattern that’s damaged, a small part of Obi-Wan’s thoughts remind him. He looks over at Fives, who seems absolutely content to just let his brothers test themselves with Ahsoka, relegating himself to cheerleader or trash-talker, whichever seems most necessary in the moment. He always stands to the right of his brothers, and while Obi-Wan had been too focussed on the sparring yesterday, he can clearly see now from this view across the mats how Fives tends to list toward Cody every so often, nearly bumping shoulders each time. Obi-Wan doesn’t know if this is supposed to be normal for drift partners or yet another worry. Cody pats Fives on the shoulder, and leans to say something in his ear that has them both grinning while they watch the fight.

He’s so caught up in studying Rex’s brothers that he missed the first two points, one for Ahsoka and one for Rex himself, it seems. As expected, his style is very much like what Obi-Wan saw of Cody’s yesterday, all firm holds and solid stances, but there’s very little trace of the heaviness that had been evident in Cody’s movements. Where Cody had been swift and calculated, Rex is just that little bit more agile and flowing, skipping on his toes to a different part of the mat rather than shifting his whole mass in single hefts. The result is that Ahsoka flutters around him as he glides around her, her staff making jabs at all his weak points. He winds around the same course, blocking all the hits just before they land.

All but one, though, when Ahsoka manages to catch him with a loud thwack of the staff against his upper thigh. She instantly backs off to apologise, obviously not thinking she’d actually get him with it, but Rex just smiles through his wince and rubs at the sore spot with a hand before they start the next round.

They’re closer in skill and style than Obi-Wan had expected, to say the least. Rex wins the next point with a move that tumbles them both to the mats, his staff coming down in a controlled arc to rest on her neck before she can move. The flash of her teeth as she gets back up warns of imminent revenge, and it comes soon enough, a volley of fast-paced hits along Rex’s back preceding a swing that he ducks under but which catches him in the chest on the return. He gasps out a laugh at that one and compliments her on it while they catch their breath.

With Ahsoka up 3-2, she attempts to go for the win, but in doing so ends up being a little too careless, dropping her guard too much in favour of making risky attacks that leave her open. Rex evens the score again but holds out a hand to help her up after he pins her, and then in a round that’s the longest so far, he takes the win, barely scraping the side of his staff against her hip just as she misses a jab at his shoulder. Fives cheers from the side when they shake hands and Ahsoka bows, and it looks like no one’s sticking around for more apart from the Fetts and Ahsoka, the other cadets moving off to the locker room.

“—an awesome sequence,” Fives is saying to Ahsoka when Obi-Wan reaches them at the edge of the mats. “Rex, buddy, you gotta step it up now,” he chides. Rex blushes, still breathing heavy from exertion, and Cody perks up at Fives’ side when he notices Obi-Wan’s presence.

“Sir,” Cody says, and Obi-Wan really wishes he’d use his name. “I think Rex and Ahsoka should try a test-drift.” He looks equal parts serious and impassioned, a brightness to his expression that was definitely not present for their conversation last night.

Ahsoka rounds on them both. “Really?” she says, eyes wide. “But I wouldn’t—you’re already Rangers together.”

Obi-Wan opens his mouth but in the moment between doing so and actually speaking, he meets Cody’s eyes, and Cody gives an imperceptible shake of his head. He hadn’t been intending to give Ahsoka the truth of these tests yet, or at least not the whole of it, and it seems like Cody’s on the same page.

“I think it would nevertheless be beneficial to see the compatibility,” he says, trying to remain as nebulous as possible, stroking a hand over his beard. “I can set up a test for this afternoon, perhaps?”

Everyone agrees, the Fetts with an air of hopefulness about them, and Ahsoka with an expression that’s hard to decipher. As she hops off to the locker rooms, Fives slings an arm around Rex’s shoulders and they make their way out of the training wing. While Obi-Wan reminds himself of his meeting schedule for the rest of the day, Cody falls into step beside him in the hall.

“Thank you,” he says, his voice quiet but unyielding. Obi-Wan looks up in surprise.

“Whatever for?”

Cody keeps his gaze fixed straight ahead, and Obi-Wan wonders if this is more for his sake or Cody’s. “For giving us another chance,” he says. “And for keeping our secrets.”

“Of course,” Obi-Wan says, but, “I’m not sure that’s cause for thanks, though. I’m merely . . .”

And what is he merely? Doing what’s needs to be done, in the face of natural-disasters-with-legs and the dwindling resources available to them to combat it? Without really realising it, Obi-Wan has helped to bring about a source of light, however small it may be for the time being. If he has to keep the brothers’ damage a secret in order to contribute to a greater good, relieved of the bureaucratic mess that would arise if they had to go through the proper safety channels, then he must, and he will.

“I’m just doing what’s right,” he says, and then makes a face at his own melodrama. When he risks a look to the side he can see the start of a smile pulling at the corner of Cody’s mouth. They reach the end of the hallway and part ways, a deep breath finally escaping Obi-Wan’s lungs as he reaches the lift; a great weight marginally shifted.

On his way to a meeting with one of the Dome IT administrators, he drops into Shaak Ti’s office. She regards him with a single, piercing look from behind her desk and then gets up to make coffee at the machine in the hallway, herding him out of her office. Obi-Wan goes without fuss.

“I need to set up a drift test,” he says, hovering while she sets the machine in motion. “Ideally for this afternoon.”

Shaak’s not facing him but he can tell she’s raising a brow. “And?” she says perceptively.

“And I need you to conduct it yourself. Just you.” Obi-Wan steps aside when she reaches past him – through him – for the sugar.

She gives him a sly look before pouring coffee into her cup. “I assume you want this secret from Marshal Windu too?”

Obi-Wan blows out a breath. “He’ll find out about it whether we want him to or not, I suppose.” He follows Shaak back to the door of her office, but she doesn’t go in, only turns in the doorway and keeps him in the hall. “We just need to be somewhat covert, is all.”

Shaak’s face is inscrutable at the best of times, but Obi-Wan thinks he can see a glimmer of playfulness in her eye. She flips her locs back over one shoulder, and says, “A stealth mission? Why it’s just like the good old days, Obi-Wan.”

Despite being in a rather high position of authority, he doesn’t actually know very much about Shaak Ti’s resume before her tenure as Psych Analyst at the Dome; there’s not a lot in her file, which is likely her own doing, and what he’s managed to gather from bits and pieces either from formal military record inquiries or her own enigmatic disclosures is that she was once part of an extremely underground revolutionary movement somewhere between Central Asia and the Arctic Circle. It’s all very mysterious, and incredibly intimidating, but Obi-Wan is quite glad that she seems to have chosen to be obscure rather than menacing, for now. Obi-Wan nods even though he has no clue what her ‘good old days’ could possibly entail, and she smiles back, all teeth.

“I’ll see you at 3 in Room B, then,” she says, right before shutting her office door in his face.

He makes sure to send a note along to all involved through the intranet messaging on his tablet, specifying where exactly the Internal Testing rooms are for the Fett brothers, as it naturally wasn’t thought to be included on the initial tour. And then rushes to his meeting, as he’s already late by a minute.

When he eventually makes his way back in the afternoon, a late lunch still settling in his stomach, everyone is already there before him. Shaak is just fitting a headset onto Ahsoka, nerves making her knee bounce up and down, her hands clasped tightly to the chair’s armrests. In the other chair, Rex sits perfectly still, an impassive look on his face as he rests his chin on his propped up fist. Cody and Fives stand out of the way, and seem as unfazed as their brother. Fives is even leaning back against the wall.

“Hi general,” Ahsoka says when Shaak moves to fit the other headset on Rex. Obi-Wan gives her a reassuring smile; everything will be okay. One of the benefits to keeping this test somewhat secret is that they don’t have to deal with the drivesuits or Conn-Pod that would inevitably be brought in were this performed along more official lines. Obi-Wan has never understood the inclination to embellish what is essentially a very deep personality test with all the technology that acts as if the pair are already compatible. All that’s really needed are the electrode-studded headsets and a calm place to sit down.

Shaak finishes setting up the wires in her machine, flips a couple preliminary switches, and angles one of her output monitors so that Obi-Wan, Cody and Fives can see it. Ahsoka takes a shaky breath, and when Obi-Wan looks back at the pair of them, Rex has already laid his hand on top of hers.

“Are you two ready?” Obi-Wan asks when Shaak gives him a nod. Ahsoka and Rex say variations of ‘yessir’ and at Shaak’s suggestion, they close their eyes as she counts down.

The machine beeps once, an unassuming sound that starts up the read-out on the screen. Obi-Wan knows from his time as Mission Controller in Anchorage that the LOCCENT drift display is a dumbed-down, streamlined version of the real outputs, this jumble of lines on a screen before them, so it’s initially difficult to see anything that Shaak doesn’t point out to them.

“All patterns normal, no rabbit-chasing. Slow and steady,” she says, typing something on her keyboard to bring up a window in the corner with a simplified read-out and percentage. “Is everyone doing well?”

Ahsoka still has her eyes closed, but nods her head at the same time Rex does, his eyes blinking open to look at his brothers. Obi-Wan sees Fives give him a thumbs up out of the corner of his eye. The number on the display climbs up through the 70s now, and then stops at—eighty-two. Interesting.

“That’s fine, Rex,” Cody says, piping up for the first time since Obi-Wan got here. Shaak looks as confused as Obi-Wan feels by this pronouncement; drifting at eighty-two percent is acceptable but not necessarily professional Ranger material. It’s barely above what the Fetts can already do as a trio. That being said, if they weren’t splitting up a functioning team by proposing this pairing, Obi-Wan has a feeling that the Defense Corps. would greenlight anything as good as this right now.

“Disengaging in five . . . four,” Shaak says, starting the countdown. By the time she gets to one, Ahsoka and Rex are just coming out of sync; it had been subtle, the way they’d been breathing at the same time, but only noticeable now that it’s not happening, carefully taking the headsets off by themselves. Obi-Wan takes a minute to wonder what that might feel like, to be so in tandem with another person that being linked feels more normal than not.

Ahsoka’s making that face that means she’s generally content but not completely convinced, and Obi-Wan wishes again that he could assure her of their efforts, that she is immensely useful, no matter what she may believe right now. “Well done,” is all Obi-Wan can say, but he truly does mean it. “The levels were stable and relatively high. I think we can chalk up any minor concerns to your being new to each other’s brains.”

Rex smirks at that, but is suddenly being pulled into a hug by Cody. He accepts it with a tight grip around his brother’s back, and instead of moving back when they break apart, Cody moves to the side, opening his arms in invitation to Ahsoka.

It shouldn’t be surprising, seeing the always so friendly Ahsoka enthusiastically take up Cody’s offer, but it somehow is. Obi-Wan abruptly can’t tell if the surprise gives way to discomfort, or perhaps just a funny feeling, seeing how outwardly supportive the unofficial leader of Tai Mate is towards someone he’s only just met. Obi-Wan pulls his eyes away from the way Cody’s arms look, the way his muscles flex even after the hug ends.

Shaak Ti has long since finished her dismantling of the test and sits perched on the edge of the desk, ankles crossed. She smirks at him when Obi-Wan looks her way, and then winks at him, of all things. Obi-Wan feels his cheeks heat at being caught out.

As they file out the door, it’s Fives who catches up to him this time, waving at his brothers to go on ahead. He tries to smile but it doesn’t quite reach all the way, and says, “So we know they’re good to go. What happens now, sir?”

Obi-Wan pauses, trying to choose his words carefully. “It would be different if they had had higher numbers,” he says. “I’m not sure I can argue the effectiveness of replacing Tai Mate, a veteran Ranger team, with a completely new pair who only manages the same drift levels.”

Fives frowns, his mouth going tense. “I see.”

“I’m – I’m only saying what the Defense Corps. higher-ups would say if I brought this to them now,” Obi-Wan says. He puts an amiable hand on Fives’ shoulder. “Besides, Cody assures me that Tai Mate will hold, and I believe him.”

Fives raises his eyebrows at that, but Obi-Wan isn’t sure which part it could be in response to. “Right,” Fives says, and then, regaining confidence with a breath, “we will.” With a reciprocatory pat on Obi-Wan’s arm he heads off in the direction of his brothers. 

Several hours and a mile of reports to read through and sign off on later, Obi-Wan finally makes his way to the mess, stopping short when he finds himself looking for a particular face in the crowd of tables. He sees Cody only milliseconds after this realization, eyes somehow zeroing in on him like it’s second nature.

Cody looks up with a quirk of a half-smile when Obi-Wan approaches. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

“Like how?” Obi-Wan says, sliding into the seat across from him. “In between the curry and the yakitori?”

“You’re right, it’s leagues better than the food they had in Sydney,” Cody says with a laugh.

“Hopefully we won’t need to compare canteen fare at all soon,” Obi-Wan sighs. He runs a hand over his face, trying to stave off the exhaustion of another day for at least long enough to finish dinner.

When he looks back, Cody is eyeing him with quiet understanding. “Right, with the plan for the breach,” he says. “Then it’ll all be over.”

It’s true enough. With the breach gone everyone with a border on the Pacific Ocean might finally be able to get back to their lives, or what’s left of them. Obi-Wan usually doesn’t try to think too hard about what the future might look like for himself.

And who knows what the future might look like for Cody and his brothers. What kind of lives do they have outside of being a Ranger team? Obi-Wan has a rough idea of how much their family means to them, how that might influence any decision, but he’s never thought to ask what they’d been doing before becoming pilots. It seems like everything they know, however hyperbolic that may sound, with how naturally they function together as a unit.

Then there’s Ahsoka, too, who’s even younger but has dedicated so much of her recent life to being a cadet, not even part of the real action. Obi-Wan thinks that might be for the best; Anakin was young when he started piloting with Qui-Gon, and—well.

He only just realizes how he’s been staring off, unseeing, in the vague direction of Cody for the last couple minutes, and feels his face redden.

“What’re you thinking about?” Cody asks, so straightforward in that way that Obi-Wan is not quite used to yet.

“The test drift,” is the oblique half-truth he lands on. He clears his throat, drags his spoon through his rice. “They looked so calm from the outside, but—I still can’t imagine what it might feel like, being compatible and stable on the inside.”

Cody hums, considering. “It’s different, depending on who you drift with,” he starts, getting a distant look in his eyes. “The drift is hard to describe, but mostly everything just flows. You don’t have to wait for your partner to understand you because they’re already thinking the same thing, at the same time as you.” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, almost bashful.

Obi-Wan thinks of the one time he’s tried to drift before, and knows it had not flowed. “That makes sense,” he says.

“Have you ever—wait no, you said you hadn’t piloted before, so—”

“I’ve test-drifted,” Obi-Wan blurts out. He’s already told Cody half the story, he might as well give him the rest of it. “With Anakin, shortly after the—accident. His mission.” A lump forms in his throat but he pushes through it. “It was an attempt at salvaging the team, what with my being next of kin.”

Cody’s elbows are up on the table now, arms crossed as he leans on them. “Right,” he says. “It didn’t work.”

A dark little laugh makes its way from Obi-Wan’s throat, and he puts his own elbow on the table, his cheek on his fist. “It didn’t. It’s what causes the nosebleeds, in fact.” Cody doesn’t look surprised at this, so he likely already guessed it. “And my right arm seizes, because, you see,” he continues, and Cody nods.

“The secondhand memory,” Cody says, and he’s right. The botched, fractured feeling of losing the limb through Anakin’s memories hadn’t been the sole cause of the mis-drift, though.

“It was too much,” Obi-Wan says, willing his voice to stay steady. “Seeing Qui-Gon again through Anakin’s eyes, the mission going so horribly awry . . . it all fell apart very quickly.” He strokes a hand over his beard, the motion a little ragged. “The psych analyst couldn’t even say whether we were actually incompatible. My brain just rejected the connection outright.”

Obi-Wan pushes his plate away, but with a glance around the mess hall realizes that apart from some of the kitchen staff they’re essentially alone. He stands up; they should all get some rest, and he turns to Cody to say as much, but—

Cody touches Obi-Wan’s arm with only a couple fingertips, a comforting gesture after the heaviness of their talk, and before he can second-guess himself, Obi-Wan leans into it until more of Cody’s hand rests there, just above his elbow. He expects Cody to say his condolences, for the touch to retreat, for them both to separate, him to his office and Cody to his brothers, but when he looks to Cody’s face he sees only a warm openness there.

Obi-Wan’s chest tightens at this silent potential offer, at how he knows Cody cares for people, how he accepts them. He considers how close an ending might come, and how tired he is of absolutely everything. How nice it might be to eschew the stragglers left in the mess hall, to hold a hand up to Cody’s face, let his fingers linger over the creases by his eye, to take control and tilt Cody’s cheek to place a kiss there, and then on the corner of Cody’s mouth.

His grip shifts lightly along Obi-Wan’s arm, up towards his bicep, and now pulled out of his own fantasies, Obi-Wan can see how affected Cody already is to just this: the blush through his face, the intensity of his eyes. Obi-Wan bites his lip and then decides that’s too much, he can see the way Cody’s gaze flickers down and back up—and Obi-Wan pulls back. He makes sure to smile, though, and to brush his own hand over Cody’s as he lets Obi-Wan move away.

“See you tomorrow,” Obi-Wan says, because it’s less final than goodnight. Cody lets him go with a smile, which is something Obi-Wan can truly be grateful for; there's still more that needs to be done.


	3. Chapter 3

Obi-Wan’s morning is so taken up by meetings that he’s unable to drop in on the training rooms, but he hopes that after the relative success of yesterday’s test drift that Rex and Ahsoka are using this time to get better acquainted with each other’s fight styles. He imagines that if anything astounding occurs that Cody will fill him in later, but Obi-Wan cuts this thought off short; he’s too busy to get distracted, and he knows he will certainly be distracted if he thinks about Cody.

In the two days since their last meeting, Padmé has apparently heard back from the Hong Kong scientists, and Windu suggests that they all meet in her lab for a change of view.

Obi-Wan never really has the need to come up here, and what with other responsibilities keeping him busy, never has the time to. With every infrequent visit he makes the lab is rendered in a completely new array of materials and equipment, the whiteboards all covered in new equations each time. It could rival the Command Centre in its liveliness, not just with people but with scientific apparatuses, specimen jars, microscopes and hundreds of slides. The identical bones of the Shatterdome architecture dressed in an organized chaos of Kaiju science.

Padmé is at a holoscreen when he and Windu arrive, making some last notes on a tablet before ushering them to the main display table. She’s aflutter with the exuberance of a scientist given new and immensely intriguing data, and wastes no time in telling them her news.

“The long and the short of it is, a pair of Hong Kong scientists managed to actually drift with the brain of the Kaiju they retrieved from the last mission,” she says, a little breathless, then with a tilt of her head adds, “well, a scientist and a Ranger.”

Obi-Wan can feel Windu’s disapproving frown without having to look. “Did they say who?” he asks, sternly.

Padmé equivocates, waving an aimless hand. “I’m not at liberty to say?”

“Quinlan,” Obi-Wan sighs, because who else would be eager to do something so dangerous.

“I assume this _pair of scientists_ were not too severely injured from their stunt?” Windu says, and Padmé nods.

“They were actually able to see the memories of the Kaiju, and that’s not singular, by the way, but Kaiju plural,” Padmé says, clearly invested in the science of it. “We don’t think it’s a hive mind per se, but some form of linked memories—anyways,” she interrupts herself, and out of the corner of his eyes Obi-Wan can see Windu hitting her with his most unimpressed stare. “All absolutely fascinating, of course, but the pertinent information,”—she opens a couple files on the table display—“from their, ahem, data gathering, is that the breach only opens for Kaiju DNA. In or out, it must be Kaiju.”

“The strategy was always to attach the bomb to a Jaeger, remove it, and then detonate it at a distance,” Obi-Wan says, resting a hand near the holo-display. “It sounds like it just needs to be removed from the Jaeger and attached to a Kaiju, and send it back down.”

Windu sets his frown on the documents in front of him. “It will likely not be as simple as that, but I can see how a plan of that structure might work,” he says.

Padmé switches to a familiar graph. “That’s unfortunately not all,” she says, and points to an upward curve. “Remember when I said that the frequency of Kaiju emergences would likely increase? Well, that’s been confirmed.”

“By the Kaiju memories?” Obi-Wan asks, perking up.

“Yes,” Padmé says. “The Hong Kong team witnessed a series of memories that apparently felt . . . recent? Quin—the _scientists_ described a sense of imminence in their report. A real drive for attack.”

Obi-Wan can’t even let himself roll his eyes at the name slip-up for all the unease brought on by that last remark. It appears the Kaiju are finally tired of playing with their food, and all the Defense Corps. have is one bomb and a meagre handful of Jaegers. He bites down on the curse sitting on his tongue, but Windu doesn’t.

“It’s been a long time since I drifted,” Windu says tightly, “but even I know that thing’s a two-way street.” Padmé’s eyes widen, and she and Obi-Wan get there at the same time.

“They know we have a bomb,” she says, and Obi-Wan nods, adding, “They know we’re coming for them, too.”

This is suddenly a lot to come to terms with. Obi-Wan is sure he’s not the only one who feels a wave of tense uneasiness at the prospect of facing an enemy who knows not only exactly what you have planned for them, but what you have left in terms of resources, and in terms of defense. It’s like a terribly uneven arms race, a frantic dash to see who will enact their plan first. As it always seems to be hovering in the back of Obi-Wan’s mind these past couple days, he thinks of Tai Mate, and whether they really will be able to hold their tenuous grasp on their drift. He has no choice but to believe what Cody said, and at the same time hope that the end of this war might come soon, for all their sakes. However the end might play out.

Obi-Wan inhales slowly, steeling himself. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. “I’ll go let the Fetts know.”

He steps back from the table at the same time the lab door swings open, Anakin breezing through. He’s in the process of detaching his prothesis, clearly about to jump into a rapport with Padmé until he notices the extra people in the room. Windu, as level headed as ever, takes this as the natural end to their meeting.

“Hey, I—Hey,” Anakin starts, then, “Sir,” to Windu as he passes on his way out the door. He finally wrestles the prosthesis off and holds it by his side, looking nervously between Obi-Wan and Padmé. 

He hasn’t seen Anakin since that morning a couple days ago in the Combat Room, and while there’s nothing particularly strange about not seeing each other for a while in a compound as big as the Tokyo Shatterdome, it’s acutely awkward to have last seen each other when Obi-Wan was telling him off. He hasn’t even had the chance to apologize in the time since. Obi-Wan takes his own glance between Anakin and Padmé now, and judges the matching blush on their cheeks. He definitely appears to have come for Padmé’s company, and didn’t expect to see Obi-Wan here.

“Thank you for the update, doctor,” he says to Padmé, and because he can never ignore the man who’s practically his brother, even though they’d last seen each other on such a poor note, “It’s good to see you, Anakin.”

He can see how Anakin tries to hold his annoyance still close to the surface, but whether it’s Padmé’s presence or the way Anakin moves so fast through life, he grants Obi-Wan a smile, somewhat tight around the edges, and says, “You too.” He moves toward the side table then, effectively ending the exchange.

Obi-Wan accepts this small victory and leaves while he still has it – and while Anakin’s distracted with Padmé. He won’t bother right now with wondering what’s happening there, but it feels like something has been a long time coming, all while Obi-Wan wasn’t looking. Perhaps his observational skills aren’t as up to par as he’d thought.

He hears Anakin start to speak as he leaves the lab, something muffled and about mechanical joints, to which Padmé laughs, her voice softens, and the lab door closes with a hush. That sense of unease from Padmé’s report still hasn’t left him, only starting to stir around an unnameable feeling that’s most likely due to stress. He has to get to the barracks to deliver the update to the Fett brothers but he needs a minute, suddenly unable to bear the thought of delivering this kind of news. He’d gladly lean up against the wall in this hallway to get himself in order but that would certainly not be an ideal look for a general, so he carries on, letting his feet find their way.

At the moment, he can’t afford to think about the possible future for Anakin and Padmé, which means he definitely can’t approach the thought that came to him last night as he’d fallen asleep, a hazy future for himself, with Cody hovering around the edges.

***

Obi-Wan is on his way to the last check over of the C-Wing repairs that afternoon when he runs into Ahsoka in the hall by the cross-Dome lifts. She greets him with a toothy smile and even though they had been going in different directions in her approach, she spins around to keep pace with him as he continues walking.

“General! I was just wondering about those test drift results,” she says. “Have you told the marshal about it yet?”

Obi-Wan tugs on the collar of his uniform shirt. He’d told Fives about his decision after the test but hadn’t thought that—he sighs. Of course he should’ve told Ahsoka, it had just slipped his mind with all the other tasks on his schedule. “I’m not convinced it would be the best idea to take Rex out of the Tai Mate team right now,” he says, angling a little towards her as they turn a corner. “So no, I hadn’t brought it up with Marshal Windu.”

“Oh, okay,” she says, disappointment painfully obvious in her voice. Obi-Wan has to consciously tell himself to relax his shoulders, stop bracing for impact. “It’s just . . . I’ve still been thinking about that drift. It was so much better than any of the other ones I’ve _ever_ had.” Ahsoka takes a deep breath. “Barely anyone else can come close to sparring like that with me, and I just . . .”

Obi-Wan bites down on a sigh. She’s so young, and it’s so much more apparent in this instance than in any other that it tugs on those Anakin-shaped heartstrings of his. Throughout all his meetings today he just couldn’t help but notice how young everyone is now, how long exactly they’ve been dealing with this as nations and as individuals. Even Qui-Gon wasn’t that old when—when Obi-Wan directed him through that last mission. How can the Kaiju threat escalate so suddenly and urgently only now, after more than a decade of fighting and defending, the UN pulling their funding and the general populace torn between seeing Rangers as celebrities and the Defense Corps. as unnecessarily wasteful.

“I know it must be nice to find a good match, but—I’m sorry, cadet.” Obi-Wan shakes his head, trying for supportive commiseration.

Ahsoka doesn’t let him get away with it. “Nice?! It was so much better than—” she cuts herself off in her own frustration, eyebrows drawing into a scowl. “It has to go somewhere, general. We should be leaping on this opportunity, that’s what Anakin said last time we spa—”

Obi-Wan takes a couple more strides towards C-Wing before he realises she’s stopped behind him, her hands clasped over her mouth and her eyes wide and almost afraid. It’s nothing like what Obi-Wan’s ever seen from her before, which makes him all the more cautious, hesitating to even ask. He runs through her aborted sentence in his head again.

“Last time you . . . spoke?” he suggests thinly. The sudden quiet of the hallway seems to press down on them. She looks so intensely apologetic when she shakes her head, and Obi-Wan holds himself perfectly still, always in control.

“You’ve been sparring,” he says, his voice gone quietly caustic. “With Anakin. After I explicitly told him not to.”

“But it’s been okay, though! It’s always been fine,” Ahsoka says, before realising how incriminating that sounds. “Nevermind—I’m sorry!”

“How long has this been—” He can feel his right arm starting to seize, now of all times, and wills away the blurring in his vision. Anakin’s his little brother, he’s already been through so much, what kind of harm has he been putting himself in the way of all this time without Obi-Wan even knowing? Without caring that Obi-Wan had asked him not to?

“General!” Ahsoka says, but it sounds like a different type of worry in her voice; his nose must have started bleeding. Obi-Wan walks back down the hallway, not the least bit interested in C-Wing repairs anymore, giving Ahsoka a wide berth where she stands in the middle of his path. She calls after him again.

“Just _stop_ , Ahsoka,” he says, not even sure if she can hear him, there’s ringing in his ears. “It’s not going to happen, so just – go out and live a real life.” His arm is a solid mass of pain but he holds it up anyways as he walks away. “Be free of all this!”

He should go find Anakin, Obi-Wan thinks, retracing all his steps back down the hallway to the main hangar. He’s already thrown off his meeting in C-Wing, and it wasn’t time-sensitive anyway; what’s a couple building repairs to the ever-impending Kaiju attacks. So yes, he’ll find Anakin and tell him—what? Apparently asking Anakin not to fight is akin to telling him the exact opposite; Obi-Wan should have known that the boy would not be content with merely his J-tech duties, but he’d assumed that Anakin’s adjunct efforts on the basement-Jaeger would be sufficient distraction to keep him away from piloting and similar dangers.

He shouldn’t find Anakin. Obi-Wan slows his pace, only now realising how fast he’d been walking, barely noticing the officers throwing themselves out of his way. No, Obi-Wan shouldn’t find Anakin, not while he’s like this; he can admit that his wanting to keep Anakin safe includes _from himself_ , not only as his brother but also as his general. It was Obi-Wan who was in command of that fatal mission in Anchorage anyways, so it makes sense that Anakin wouldn’t listen to him now, after everything Obi-Wan has done to him already.

His damned arm is seizing so much that he has to lean against a wall however briefly, let his vision clear and let his heart rate settle. He can still hear his own blood pounding in his ears. Of course those officers were scared a few hallways ago; who knows what his face must look like with the nosebleed he can feel on his upper lip. He takes a breath, lets his throbbing shoulder press firmly into the metal siding of the wall. The sounds of the main hangar echo from just around the corner.

He shouldn’t have stormed away from Ahsoka; he’s a general for goodness sake, he’s supposed to have more composure than that. He should be used to handling issues like this by now, he’s got enough experience with things coming out of left field at him.

Obi-Wan doesn’t realize he’s even closed his eyes until he opens them to see Cody walking down the hallway towards him, peering curiously at him at first and then more determined as he assesses Obi-Wan’s appearance.

“Obi-Wan—are you alright?” Cody says. His hand materialises at Obi-Wan’s elbow, and it throws him back to last night when Cody’s hand had lingered there too. He misses the next thing Cody says.

“Pardon?”

“I said, let’s get you cleaned up. Here,” Cody says, and pulls him away from the wall towards the other side of the hallway; apparently he’d been loitering right across from an empty single-user washroom. Cody leads him in, still with that hand on his elbow. Obi-Wan watches him hesitate for just a second before fully closing the door.

He lets Cody lean him up against the sink, his heart fluttering a little when Cody stretches around him to wet a paper towel. It doesn’t even occur to Obi-Wan to fight him on this, that he can do it himself; there is something unquestionably natural about letting Cody just help him. After the first couple gentle dabs at Obi-Wan’s nose, Cody brings a hand up, a thumb and two fingers confidently holding Obi-Wan’s chin in place. Obi-Wan is almost hyperaware of the closeness of Cody’s hip to his along the edge of the counter.

After a couple minutes of careful, silent cleaning, Cody leans back and tilts Obi-Wan’s face, assessing the damage. His expression reminds Obi-Wan of the unobtrusive determination that Cody had gotten when watching his brother spar, and even when sparring with Ahsoka himself. From this close up it’s near impossible to look away from. Apparently approving of his own work, Cody’s hand shifts to Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “How’s the arm, now?” he asks, voice low.

“Never better,” Obi-Wan says, which gets him a thoroughly unconvinced look in return. It really is feeling close to normal again, though, so he rotates his wrist and rolls his shoulder. His elbow joint cracks when he re-extends it, which is as normal as it’s going to get.

The hand at his shoulder is displaced to the front of his chest now, and it’s all he can focus on even when Cody asks, “You’ll be fine?”

Obi-Wan dips his head forward slightly, a dangerous move considering how close they already are. “Under your care?” he asks, equal parts sarcastic and flirtatious, daring to raise an eyebrow. Cody gives him an unimpressed squint. “Yes, I’ll be fine,” Obi-Wan says, more sincerely.

It strikes Obi-Wan just then how absurdly _good_ Cody is. Not just good at cleaning up nosebleeds, or manoeuvring him into the minimum amount of medical care, but good at being a person. He defends his brothers with the same conviction with which he defends the whole Pan-Pacific border. He takes notice of people, and helps people, and fights for people. He has a capacity for kindness that far exceeds that of many others, and he has a will of iron that he uses for all the right things. It’s a captivating presence to be around.

Obi-Wan releases his grip on the counter. “Do you want to spar?”

“What?” Cody says, but the corner of his mouth quirks up.

“We’re by the training rooms right? Let’s spar,” Obi-Wan says, and he has to give major credit to Cody for holding back on all those likely correct warnings about sparring so soon after one of Obi-Wan’s episodes.

There are thankfully other combat rooms besides the main one used for teaching, and it is one of these which Obi-Wan directs them to, sliding the door most of the way shut after them and nudging out of his shoes. It’s a much smaller space but it’s outfitted with all the same equipment, so while Obi-Wan hangs up his uniform jacket, Cody’s already grabbing two staffs off their holding rack, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, and trying a few lunges to loosen up.

Obi-Wan tests the weight of the staff in his grip, and a moment later, settles into a starting position. He hadn’t expected his afternoon to go this way at all, but since everything else seems to be thrown out of regularity he might as well continue with this sudden and spontaneous course.

Although Cody starts out light with his forms, he quickly settles into the heavier hits that Obi-Wan had been expecting, especially when it becomes clear that Obi-Wan is no longer pulling his punches like he had with Ahsoka. He knows his hardest is well within Cody’s defensive capacity, so when he whirls his staff around and it connects with Cody’s block with a sharp sound of wood on wood, he wastes no time on the judder of the impact through his arms and whips the other end of his staff under Cody’s block on the other side.

They’re already breathing heavily when they part for a moment, disengaging from the almost never-ending sequence of attacks but still circling. For once, Obi-Wan is on the offensive, eager to initiate, and it seems like Cody’s more than fine with this. In fact, he’s holding his own quite well; now that he’s a participant it’s harder for Obi-Wan to observe the overall fluidity of Cody’s movements, focussed as he is on his own form, but Cody still moves with the same level-headed purpose as before, and manages to be in the right place exactly when he needs to.

Neither have landed a hit yet. Every time Obi-Wan thinks he comes close to even just brushing the side of his staff along the top of Cody’s shoulder, or jabbing into Cody’s side, or swiping his feet off the ground, Cody merely sidesteps or hops or charges in close to get out of range. It would almost make Obi-Wan laugh if he wasn’t so focussed on not getting hit in return—he hasn’t fought someone like this in so long, but then he thinks perhaps he’s never fought someone like this, _ever_ , and isn’t that an exciting thought.

His muscles are starting to burn with exertion, but the prospect of stopping is unthinkable. Cody huffs loudly on a forward attack which Obi-Wan steps around, his eyes catching on the shine of sweat on Cody’s forearms. He grabs for one instead of his next planned swing with his staff, the skin warm, flesh solid under his palm, and pulls, finally—breathlessly!—taking Cody off-balance. Obi-Wan tucks the heel of his foot against the back of Cody’s calf and pushes his weight into shoving them both down and to the side, and they both roll with the movement. Obi-Wan’s staff leaves his hand but he doesn’t need it, lets it drop away while he tries to swing his leg around to dislodge Cody’s staff from his grip. Either he succeeds or Cody lets him, but with the staffs abandoned, that last barrier shaking loose, Obi-Wan is suddenly up against the solid wall that is entirely Cody, a heavy tide of motion that curves away into a crouch, waiting for the next move.

Obi-Wan does let out a laugh this time, a short one that turns into a gasp when he tries to evade Cody’s tackle but his uniform trousers restrict the movement. He ends up on his back, Cody’s forearm to his throat, his legs pinned, and one of his arms held down in a firm grip. He smiles back up at Cody.

“Finally,” Cody breathes, listing over to the side, releasing his hold. He lies on his back next to Obi-Wan and catches his breath, one arm thrown above his head, the other hand resting on his own belly.

It’s a very compelling distraction from everything in Obi-Wan’s head right now, so he decides to be greedy for just a little while longer, propping himself up on an arm and just watching Cody’s chest rise and fall, his eyelashes fanning out on his cheeks.

“Thank you for telling us about the K-Sci update,” Cody says a moment later, his eyes still closed. Obi-Wan blinks.

“Of course,” he says, although he’s not sure why he needs to be thanked for something so routine. He fiddles with his rolled up sleeve. “It’s part of my job.”

Cody opens his eyes then. “Is it?” he asks. “They never told us anything down in Sydney, just kept us around for each event.”

Obi-Wan tries to imagine a version of himself, a general, who would learn relevant information and not pass it along to those directly affected. It doesn’t come to him. He shakes his head. “I—that’s—”

Cody warms into a smile. “That’s what’s so surprising about you. You do all of these things because it just never occurs to you not to do them.” He sits up as he speaks, and Obi-Wan pictures abdominal muscles tensing. “I thought maybe you were just a nice face with standard old Defense Corps. behind the eyes, but— I feel really lucky to know you.”

This is absurd, and unexpected, and completely impossible. But Cody has no reason to lie, and no reason to be looking at Obi-Wan like he’s doing now.

“You think I have a nice face?” he says, trying to be light about it because maybe it’s a joke, he doesn’t—

“Obi-Wan,” Cody says, and Obi-Wan doesn’t think he’s imagining it when Cody tips his head to the side, a ruddy blush creeping onto his cheeks, the timbre of his voice hitting a spot inside Obi-Wan’s chest that makes him swallow, glance down at Cody’s mouth, and meet him halfway.

The kiss is so much, Cody’s lips insistent over his own, warm and soft and a little bit sweaty, still, from the sparring. Obi-Wan has to take a breath immediately, his heart hammering at his ribcage, but falls back into the press of Cody’s mouth, unable to do anything else that isn’t solely focussed on the man in front of him. He exhales across Obi-Wan’s cheek, and one of his hands come up to hold his jaw, scratch his fingers through his beard. Obi-Wan doesn’t think he lets out a sound at that but he gets the hand moving along his neck to the back of his head anyways, pulling him even more forward, as if he’d leave any room between them now.

Without a thought, Obi-Wan licks at the seam of Cody’s lips with his tongue, and when Cody lets him in he feels his face heat, but just the thought of putting his hand on Cody’s chest and swinging a leg over Cody’s lap makes it heat even more—

They jolt apart with a shared gasp when the alarm siren starts, the shrill noise cracking through the room spurring them onto their feet out of sheer muscle memory. They leave the staffs on the mat but put on their shoes, too practiced to be frantic in their movements. Obi-Wan picks up his jacket and then they’re both through the door, jogging down the hallway, and with a last glance at each other—Cody firm-lipped and rugged, Obi-Wan probably red-faced and damp—they part for their stations.

Fuck, Obi-Wan thinks with each quick step towards the Command Centre, willing the evidence of his arousal into submission. He says it aloud, “ _Fuck_ ,” just to see if it helps him feel better. The utter disconnect between everything this afternoon is starting to really take its toll on him; between the regret at disparaging Ahsoka, getting to kiss Cody, and having to turn around and fight for their lives, he’s really hanging on by a thread here. It only minimally helps when he thinks about lying down for a thousand years at some point in time when everything is done.

He manages to take less than a second outside of the Command Centre doors to smooth down his hair and toss his jacket on, leaving it unbuttoned because no one cares about dress code when there’s a Kaiju in international waters.

Windu turns and waves him over once Obi-Wan enters the already bustling room, and after letting officers intersect his path with their hurried looks, he comes up to Windu’s side. A glance at one of Plo’s screens tells him there are two Kaiju out there already.

“A category 4 and 5,” Windu says before Obi-Wan can even ask the question. Neither of them really have to say what they’re thinking next; it’s just as Padmé predicted, higher frequency, higher categories. “Where are our Rangers at?”

“Tai Mate is still suiting up,” says Plo from his seat at the main console. Obi-Wan sees Windu’s jaw tense out of the corner of his eye.

“What’s the hold up,” Windu says under his breath. Even though it’s unlikely to be the actual cause of delay, Obi-Wan gets a flash of Cody all flushed and solid on the mats of the combat room and has to clear his throat.

Plo listens to his earpiece for a second, then relays a confirmation through one of the keypads on the console. A burst of static filters in through one of the comms speakers, and then there’s Cody’s voice, calm and clear. “All pilots prepared for the drop.”

As Plo counts down for the Conn-Pod drop, Obi-Wan tries to pull himself into the present, focussing on the ping of the radar, or the texture of his jacket sleeve. He can’t stop thinking about that last look at Cody as they turned down different ends of the hangar walkway; it matches up too well with some last looks he’s had before.

“Conn-Pod secure,” Plo says. “Starting engines now.” Obi-Wan watches through the LOCCENT window onto the hangar as the Jaeger fires up during its transport to the open main doors, the massive miracle of technology thrumming alive. He can picture the three of them in there, behind the reinforced shields of the Conn-Pod, bracing themselves for yet another fight.

One of the LOCCENT officials fumbles her tablet so wildly it almost ends up on the floor as she passes by, and in throwing out a hand to help her Obi-Wan misses the initiation of the neural handshake, impassively announced by Plo. Quite unsubtly, he searches for the drift read-out screen to watch as it stabilizes, reaching the passable value of seventy-seven percent. He blows out a silent breath in relief; this will still be all right.

The live feed from one of their helicopters switches on just as the Tai Mate hemispheres announce their calibration, Fives then Cody then Rex sounding off in order.

Once Windu gets the go-ahead from Plo, he gives Tai Mate the same orders as last time, holding and defending the Hiroshi Nihon Line, his voice soberly recounting the presence of non-government vessels in nearby waters. A control crew officer appears at Obi-Wan’s elbow.

“Hong Kong has already deployed Sentinel Shadow, sir, estimated time to intercept is twenty minutes.” Obi-Wan thanks him, grateful that the command at the Hong Kong Dome didn’t bother to wait for them to call for assistance this time.

The subsequent interval between deployment and reaching the Kaiju eats away at Obi-Wan like never before. They get occasional updates from the Hong Kong LOCCENT team on Sentinel Shadow’s status, but this combined with only the neural bridge read-out and the live feed isn’t enough to distract from the anticipation of an actual category 5 Kaiju. The first sighting had been reported off the coast of Chile only a couple days ago, the Santiago Shatterdome deploying two of their Jaegers to combat it, and only coming back with one and a half. None of it bodes well for today’s encounter, but it doesn’t help anyone to get caught up in worries and unknowns.

Another round of static precedes a report from Cody. “Visual on the first Kaiju. We’re not sure where the other one is.” The video feed does indeed show one of the Kaiju, holding back for now, a stocky shape half-risen out of the water with a ring of jagged horns erupting around its head.

Plo swivels to one of his display screens. “I can confirm that the Kaiju you sighted is the category 4. The category 5 appears to be half a kilometre away, to the south-east.”

“Copy that,” says Fives. “Can you tell these helos to ga—for—” Static scrambles the rest of his message. One of the communications officers swears and fiddles with their equipment.

“What was that?” Windu says, leaning forward. Out of habit, Obi-Wan glances at the drift levels, but they’re the same as before.

“Something about the helicopters,” Obi-Wan says. He moves to the console microphone and tilts it towards himself. “Tai Mate, please say again, all after ‘helos’.”

“General Kenobi,” Rex says this time, followed by another wave of static. “We need the helos out of—”

“ _Kaiju_!” Fives yells, before static fills the communication wavelength entirely. All heads in the Command Centre turn to the video feed and watch, open-mouthed, as the category 5 finally surfaces, slamming into Tai Mate’s legs with a thunderous noise. Obi-Wan winces, unable to tear his eyes away from the screen, as Tai Mate is forced back by a huge step, the category 4 choosing now to engage.

If they had functioning comms, they likely would hear it when Tai Mate geared up its attack, the third arm thankfully able to charge its palm blast while the other two arms are busy grappling the category 4. The category 5 is huge, to say the least, with a long snout and dagger-like skin spiked up around its shoulders like a collar. It menaces its way back to mostly under water, circling around where Tai Mate and the other Kaiju are grappling.

Plo tries again to get more than just static from Tai Mate, another officer coming from her station with a different device, plugging it into the main console to see if it helps to fix the connection.

Tai Mate fires its palm blast at the category 4 just as Sentinel Shadow comes into view, its main chest cannon already charged and aimed at where the category 5 is hanging back, almost assessing the playing field.

“Hong Kong LOCCENT confirm that they are also experiencing difficulty communicating with Sentinel Shadow,” an officer calls out.

Obi-Wan shares a look with Windu. “It’s the Kaiju,” Obi-Wan says, gripping the base of the microphone he’s still sitting in front of. “They must be blocking the signals.”

“ _How_ is a Kaiju blocking signals,” Windu says, with no small amount of frustration. Obi-Wan hasn’t the faintest idea, and tensely watches Sentinel Shadow barely skim a cannon blast off the arm of the category 5. Its mouth gapes open like a terrible reproduction of a smile, baring its shark-like teeth as if it’s laughing.

The category 4 recovers quickly from Tai Mate’s palm blast, but in the space they created with their first attack, Tai Mate is able to charge on it, releasing a flurry of missiles from their right arm. They manage to catch the underside of the category 4’s throat, and it cowers back to regroup.

Obi-Wan checks on Tai Mate’s neural read-out to find it dipping like it had before, but otherwise fine. He just hopes they can hold on a little longer. He turns in his seat to where Windu is standing behind him. “We’ve got to get that bomb down there soon,” he says, his tone leaving no room for argument, but Windu just nods.

“We’ll attach it to Tai Mate once they get back. That way, the next time one of these—” Windu restrains himself from the insult. “The next time, we’ll stop them for good.”

It’s a shame they couldn’t get the bomb onto them this time, though. The category 5 is causing all sorts of trouble for the two Jaegers, keeping just out of the way of their attacks and slashing at them with long claws as it swims by. Obi-Wan wonders if the Jaegers are at least able to communicate with each other, even if they can’t talk to their bases; Sentinel Shadow holds the line beside Tai Mate and they focus their attention on the category 4, leaving the other Kaiju to its predatory circling.

“Tyrannus,” one of the comms officers relays, “Hong Kong have called the Cat-5 Tyrannus.”

“That’s all well and good,” Windu says, “but can they even get a real hit on it?”

A real hit does come eventually. Now that the Jaeger’s combined power is narrowed to just the category 4, a double cannon blast from Sentinel Shadow sends it reeling for good, thick blue blood washing out in the water around it, visible even in the live video feed. “That’s savage, dude,” mutters one of the officers, and Obi-Wan thinks absently that it sounds like a Kaiju name Hong Kong would come up with.

Tyrannus doesn’t seem to like this turn in the tide, rushing up on the two Jaegers from behind. Tai Mate’s movement seems inhibited, but it can’t be their drift – sitting somberly at seventy-three percent – so it must be one of those claws below the water’s surface, pinning the Jaeger’s cybernetic muscle strands. They have their front left arm fully charged for their own cannon blast, but nowhere to aim it; the back left arm sits in the way of the range of motion necessary for it to get to Tyrannus. Sentinel Shadow tries to throw a punch at it while they wait for their chest cannon’s power to build back up but the Kaiju skims out of the way, resolutely keeping the majority of its body submerged.

Obi-Wan’s nearly too engrossed in the action on the video feed to notice when Tai Mate’s neural read-out splits into three again, wavering there for a terrifying half a second before reforming, and in the time it takes for Obi-Wan to look back at the live feed, Sentinel Shadow fires off its cannon blast, and Tyrannus sends out a debilitating EMP.

The video feed cuts out suddenly and completely, and gasps echo through the Command Centre. Tai Mate’s life signs don’t fall silent but they do pause, waiting to reconnect when the Jaeger boots up again. That seems very unlikely though; Plo has a senior J-tech on the other end of his earpiece which he routes through to the main console speakers, erupting mid-sentence with, “—can’t assess the damage from the burst, we won’t know if we can re-start the digital transistors until it’s back at the Dome.”

Not for the first time today, Obi-Wan’s heartbeat pounds in his ears. Each time he glances at the drift read-out, held static and waiting at a distressing sixty percent, he thinks about that jolting split in their drift, about the three minds connected so fragilely to this mech and to each other, stranded in the middle of the ocean with the largest Kaiju the western Pacific has yet seen. They don’t even know if it even got hit by Sentinel’s last attack. What’s more, nobody even knows what the EMP might have done to their already unpredictable neural handshake, either. Obi-Wan is in the one place where he can’t do anything to help, and he can’t even watch what’s happening.

“Send out the evacuation crew,” Windu says. He’s remarkably composed given the current situation, but Obi-Wan supposes that’s what makes him an effective marshal of the Shatterdome. Plo’s still caught up with the J-tech so Obi-Wan relays the message, barely registering the words he’s saying. He just hopes they can get their boats there fast enough and that they arrive to as safe a scene as possible.

Only thirty seconds later, a comms officer calls out, “Sirs!” and the fizzle of a connection finally comes through the console speakers.

“This is Sentinel Shadow to Tokyo Mission Control,” Quinlan’s voice wavers through the weak line. “All Kaiju are neutralized,”—there’s a palpable relief to these words—“but Tai Mate is, uh, down for the count.”

Obi-Wan’s frozen in place, but Windu still has the presence of mind to lean over to the microphone. “This is Marshal Windu to Sentinal Shadow. Can you clarify the status of Tai Mate?”

Obi-Wan’s hand grips tight to the edge of the console as Quinlan’s partner, someone Obi-Wan doesn’t recognize, says, “They must have been worse affected by the EMP, no sight and no sound of them. No emergency pods.”

From Obi-Wan’s side, Plo switches his own comms to the evac crew, ordering a helicopter out there, which is smart, it’s what Obi-Wan would do too, get right up to the emergency hatch of the Conn-Pod and lift them out directly. He grips tighter when his hand starts shaking beyond his control, but he doesn’t think this is the same as his seizures. Tai Mate is dead in the water and the Fetts might be—he’d just seen Cody how many minutes ago? A Jaeger collapsing from standstill is just as bad in the water as it is on a beach. A pilot collapsing inside a Conn-Pod from an EMP- and drift-induced brain hemorrhage has no means of escape.

Obi-Wan lurches up from his seat, suddenly needing to move, to be outside, away from the Command Centre. In a blur he’s out in the hall, letting the door behind him close on all the organized panic of officers and technicians. He leans his back to the wall and tries to count his breath, tries not to think about whether it’s better or worse to be able to hear a team of Rangers suffer through the LOCCENT speakers, or to be cut off entirely from all communication, all knowledge of their safety. With each shaky breath after breath Obi-Wan clings to the memory of Cody holding his big hand to the back of Obi-Wan’s neck in their kiss, the way Cody’s fingers trailed through the small hairs there. Please, he thinks.

He must lose track of time while he’s out there, because when Windu comes out he tells Obi-Wan that the Fetts are on their way to the med centre.

“They’re alive?” Obi-Wan asks, surprisingly able to control the waver in his voice.

Windu nods. “They’re shaken up, but they’re alive. All of them,” he says. It releases something in Obi-Wan’s chest, and he blows out a breath, a certain finality to the feeling.

“Good, that’s—good,” Obi-Wan says. “The retrieval of Tai Mate—”

“Will be handled by the air crew,” Windu says. He guides Obi-Wan into the meeting room no one ever uses, and sits him down in one of the fancy chairs. The late afternoon light reflects dimly off of the shiny surface of the table. Windu doesn’t sit, just stands between Obi-Wan and the door. “I know now is perhaps not the best time, but it is the only time left available,” he says. Obi-Wan frowns. “So I believe you should tell me everything you need to tell me, now.”

Right, Obi-Wan thinks. This mission had all the opportunities in the world to go the same way that it had for Anakin and Qui-Gon in Anchorage all those years ago. It didn’t, but it truly could have, and just knowing how close that possibility skimmed to the surface is enough for real devastation. If it was possible to be even more dramatic about the situation, he could describe how great a loss a team like Tai Mate would be for humanity, as well as for the Tokyo Dome, but neither he nor the marshal would appreciate that brand of significance.

The truth of the matter is that Obi-Wan knew about many things, and remembered his past failures, and even took steps in the direction of a solution, and yet still chose to keep Tai Mate together until, inevitably, its end. They’re still alive, he reminds himself, the Jaeger and its contents are still in one piece, but as he tells Windu everything he should have told him from the beginning, everything after that first fateful morning, he knows that it was his own fault he could not save them.

***

It’s nearing that hazy, pre-dawn light outside when Obi-Wan finally makes his way to the med centre. The last time he checked the time it was turning 3 A.M., but there’s been at least an hour since then. He knows Windu has been to see the Fetts already, in his capacity as marshal of the Dome, and Obi-Wan thinks it’s probably best that they heard from someone else first, before laying eyes on him.

Before he can talk himself out of waiting another couple hours he knocks lightly on the door to the private room, and receives a faint affirmative from inside. As is customary for post-mission medical matters, all three Ranger brothers are in here; Obi-Wan barely recalls some psychological or neurological study which emphasised the benefits to close physical distance between Jaeger pilots after drifting for extended periods. In the back of his mind, Obi-Wan is a little skeptical that this treatment should be unique to Rangers and not just a base human necessity, but he’s not one to argue with the med centre staff.

Fives is in the bed by the window in what looks to be a deep sleep, but Rex and Cody are sitting up in their respective beds, angled towards each other but heads turned to face him as he enters. Obi-Wan takes careful note of their exhausted but otherwise unscathed faces. He stands a couple paces away, and silently braces himself to accept their well-deserved ire.

Which doesn’t come. Cody’s blanket shifts when he moves his leg, the sound the loudest thing in the room. “General.”

Obi-Wan searches for an underlying scathing tone that he can’t find. Rex says, “The last we heard of you were those ancient procedure words.” He huffs out a laugh, then, “What the hell.” His voice is quiet, likely trying to keep it down for Fives’ rest.

They must see Obi-Wan glance over at him. “He took the brunt of the hit,” Cody says, then sighs, gestures faintly to Rex. “We’ve been talking it over since we got back, and, uh.” His mouth twists like he’s trying to contain himself, and Obi-Wan wants to say no, let me have it, all of it. Cody holds Obi-Wan’s gaze, and finishes, “We have to retire the team.”

It’s not a surprise, in general, but it’s not what he’d thought Cody would say. Obi-Wan glances at Fives again, lying in his uncomfortable sleep, and opens his mouth to apologize, but Rex cuts it off.

“There’s no real choice, now, anyways,” he says, and Cody nods in agreement. “Cody and I, we’re not really suited to drifting with just us. We’re just two left sides now.”

“I see,” Obi-Wan finally manages. “I’m—”

“Don’t,” says Cody, softly, which—well. Obi-Wan shuts his mouth. When he starts to heave himself from the bed, Obi-Wan rushes forward, a ‘ _Wait, don’t get up_ ,’ ready to leave his lips until Cody stops, perched half off the bed, and puts his own hands to Obi-Wan’s outstretched ones. “It’s not your fault,” he says, shaking his head, insisting it with a squeeze around Obi-Wan’s palms.

“It was,” Obi-Wan says, gaze flicking between his own hands. “I was the one who chose not to tell anyone about Rex and Ahsoka’s drift compatibility. I even actively discouraged it!”

“You couldn’t have known what would happen, Obi-Wan,” Cody says with another squeeze around his hands. Obi-Wan tries to focus on something other than the sensation of Cody’s thumb smoothing over his palm. “Not even we knew until it happened that it would go like that, as soon as it did.”

Obi-Wan’s thoughts race back to the drift read-out, and has to agree there. Rex carefully props himself back on his pillows, interjecting, “I would be too weak anyways.”

“What?” Obi-Wan says, successfully persuading himself to drop Cody’s hands. He realizes that Rex has since been inside Cody’s mind since their sparring-turned-kiss, and so definitely already knows about everything that is both happening and not happening between Obi-Wan and his brother, but it’s the propriety of the thing. He’s still a general.

“As a trio, it turns out we were only barely holding on,” Rex says. “A pair-up with Ahsoka could’ve been better, yes, but it also could’ve done me in just the same.”

Obi-Wan considers this fully. “Are you saying you don’t just need a new partner,” he says. “We need two?”

“Yes,” Cody says. Obi-Wan watches him lean heavily on an arm, the medical gown bunching around his middle. Where does this leave Cody, then, Obi-Wan thinks. With one brother fully out of commission and one willing to throw himself into a potentially dangerous pair-up just to avoid leaving the Tokyo Dome without a Jaeger? They have a bomb they are in the middle of attaching to Tai Mate that no one can pilot anymore, and Kaiju who know they’re coming for an entire coastline they have no means of defending.

Obi-Wan retreats momentarily to pull a chair over and collapse into it. He’s had the whole night to ignore the fatigue pulling on his body and to ruminate on the methods he’s chosen to handle everything under his command with since Anchorage. His entire job is to be in charge of a vast number of people, and so far he’d thought he’d been managing quite well, but after a day like that and a night like this, he’s had ample opportunity to realise his mistakes. Which means he’s spent a not insubstantial amount of time thinking about not just Ahsoka, but also Anakin.

Ahsoka, who is miraculously drift compatible with a veteran Ranger; Anakin, who Ahsoka has been sparring with on an apparently regular basis. Obi-Wan has made inconceivably poor decisions regarding both of them, but he thinks maybe this is the universe trying to tell him that he can still make some things right again. He runs a hand over his face and lets out a steadying breath.

“There is a third person who could pilot Tai Mate,” Obi-Wan says, interrupting the quiet lull that had fallen over the room. “Rex,” he says, and both Rex and Cody sit a little bit more to attention, “how would you feel about trying another test drift?”


	4. Chapter 4

Obi-Wan powers through until proper morning, too keyed up and anxious to start his plan to do anything other than what he needs to, resigning himself to a very tiring afternoon later on, and waiting until he knows Anakin will be up and about. He had only stayed with the Fetts until the half-hour, when a nurse had arrived to do some tests and had shooed him out of the med centre entirely.

It’s fine though; he still has paperwork sitting in his room that he should work on, and C-Wing repairs to check well before the day’s working hours start. He is more than capable of doing the tasks that need to be done, despite being suddenly filled with the itch to move, to grab everyone and put them in place, stuff them in a three-armed, bomb-equipped Jaeger and finally get on with the end of a stiflingly long interdimensional war. He’s been handed another chance, and he won’t take this opportunity lightly this time.

By the time it’s a more reasonable hour, he’s done all of his idle desk-work with several cups of tea and made a wide loop around the Dome. When he messages Anakin on his tablet, he’s told to come to the K-Science lab; it’s remarkably honest, as Obi-Wan had rather expected to be told some public location, or perhaps near the basement-Jaeger, but he’s not one to sniff at the olive branch when he sees it, no matter how unanticipated it may be.

Seeing as it’s her lab to begin with, it’s unsurprising that Padmé is here too, when Obi-Wan pushes open the door. She sends him a small, welcoming smile and then returns her focus to her computer terminal, and Anakin rises from the edge of the nearby desk he’d been leaning against, silently directing Obi-Wan to the side. A quarter of a Kaiju eyeball stares up at them from a massive spirit jar on the table, and Obi-Wan suddenly thinks it’s perhaps for the best that he didn’t have much of a breakfast.

“Hey,” Anakin says. His arms are crossed, prosthetic attached, and his stance is firm. He’s got less of a frown than last time though, and Obi-Wan realises that this is Anakin’s defensive posture. He’s waiting to get a dressing down. Obi-Wan lets out a weird, short laugh at the sight, a little out of sleep deprivation and a little out of the relief that he doesn’t actually have to give Anakin one. Anakin just looks confused. “Obi-Wan?” he says, a little more hesitantly.

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan tries to instill as much brotherly affection into his tone as possible. “You’re not in trouble.”

Anakin shifts his weight a little, still clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Ahsoka told me, I already—”

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan cuts him off. His voice is earnest enough that it catches Anakin off-guard, and how backwards is that, that he’s more used to getting scolded by Obi-Wan than apologised to. Obi-Wan perches his weight on the table behind him. “I don’t say it enough, I know, but I’m sorry, Anakin.”

And now Anakin looks embarrassed. He even takes a quick glance back toward Padmé – still quietly absorbed in her own work – before rubbing a hand over his neck and dropping it by his side. “You don’t need to do that,” he says. “I know you’re just worried about me.”

Obi-Wan dips his head in acknowledgement. “It’s not just the sparring I worry about,” he says. “You know how hard it was, losing—losing Qui-Gon, and very nearly losing you as well.” He tries to keep his voice soft, but it catches over some of the words, coming out stronger than intended. He waits until he can catch Anakin’s eyes again. “I only know the loss that I felt, far away in the control room, but it must have been—I can’t imagine how hard it had to have been, inside his head when it happened.”

Anakin’s mouth is a flat line but he stays quiet, very likely just for Obi-Wan’s sake. Perhaps he feels this is a long time coming, waiting for Obi-Wan to finally bring it up instead of shoving everything deep into a pit inside himself. Obi-Wan only has a vague, outsider’s idea of the drift, but none of it can feel normal when half of the pair of you is dying. He lets out a breath. 

“And after,” he continues. “You’d just lost your arm and your co-pilot, suffered through the break of the handshake and then you just. Shouldered the neural load of solo-piloting to the beach.” Obi-Wan can still remember Anakin’s ragged breathing through the speakers, the sound almost drowning everything else out in the control room, or maybe it was just like that for Obi-Wan. In the smallest of gestures, he holds out a hand to Anakin. “I never wanted that to happen to you again. I thought I was . . . protecting you. In a way that I couldn’t before.”

After a long moment, during which Obi-Wan runs through all the possible worst-case scenarios in his head, Anakin lifts his right hand – his prosthetic hand – and places it on Obi-Wan’s. He half turns his head as if to check on Padmé again before he catches himself. He opens his mouth a couple times, and screws up his face like he used to when he was younger, as if trying to silently phrase something before speaking, which is so unlike Anakin that it has Obi-Wan a little worried for what’s coming next.

When he does speak, though, it’s not so bad. “I _was_ mad, after, but not really at you.” He lifts his hand off of Obi-Wan’s. “I dunno, I kind of got over all of this already,” he says with a shrug, which makes Obi-Wan huff out a laugh, that of course this boy could get impatient with his own anger. Anakin quirks his mouth, though, and says, “I guess maybe you didn’t, though.”

And isn’t that just the truth, right there. He can barely say Qui-Gon’s name out loud at the best of times, and still wakes up out of breath from the dreams where he’s forced to listen to his father’s voice cutting off, the sound of shearing metal, Anakin’s screams. Obi-Wan isn’t even entirely sure that he can get over it, as Anakin put it, or at least not completely, but he can at least change the particular direction he’s been facing in order to avoid it. He smiles tightly at Anakin, shifts his weight off the table, and puts a hand on Anakin’s shoulder.

“No, you’re right,” he says, acquiescent. “But I do have to say my apologies. They’re necessary for my plan to commence. I need your help.”

This gets Anakin’s interest, as Obi-Wan had hoped. Anakin even straightens up a little, his whole body a question. “I’ll accept your apology if you fill me in on it?” he says, and Obi-Wan takes it for the assent that it is.

He pats Anakin’s shoulder a couple times, saying, “I have an idea for rearranging our Jaeger teams, but I admit that it may not work.” They thankfully start to move away from the Kaiju eyeball.

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin addresses him with the beginnings of a grin. As they turn towards the doors, Obi-Wan catches the peek of a smile from Padmé before it disappears behind her screen, and the feeling in his chest lightens marginally. Anakin slaps his own hand across Obi-Wan’s shoulders. “You know those are the kinds of ideas I like the most.”

***

Obi-Wan is still very scared that his plan won’t work, but at least with Anakin on board there’s one less thing on his mile-long list of things he has to worry about. The rest of his day is taken up by a virtual meeting with the higher-ups of the Hong Kong and Sydney Shatterdomes; it starts with a fairly logical discussion of the steps required to deploy the bomb from another Dome in time for the next breach, but after the two-hour mark has devolved into circular statements of caution barely masked as strategic advice. During a long rambling speech from the Sydney marshal, Obi-Wan leans over to Windu to say that he has tentative plans in progress which may not mean they have to shift tactics entirely. Credit where credit is due, Windu just nods at this, and in the years that Obi-Wan has been serving under him, he takes it as the permission to continue that it is. Where Windu keeps finding the capacity to trust Obi-Wan he will never know.

Despite his barrelling over the 36-hour mark of wakefulness, Obi-Wan still doesn’t get to sleep until late in the night, kept awake through the sheer power of his own nerves. He had received an official notice from the med centre about the release of Cody and Rex from the ward – Fives still technically incapacitated but certainly on the mend – but he hasn’t seen them all day, mostly due to the constant stream of responsibilities at his feet. Even when he visits the mess hall for a late dinner, there’s no sign of either brother; hopefully this means this just means they’re preparing for their own contributions to Obi-Wan’s plan.

After a restless sleep, Obi-Wan judges roughly when the cadets would be rousing for their daily training, and then makes his way to find Ahsoka in the barracks. Her door is ajar, some faint music trickling through the gap, and Obi-Wan pushes it open when she responds to his knock.

Obi-Wan’s first thought is that it looks remarkably similar to all the other barracks rooms, with bare old walls and pipes along the ceiling, a slim window along the top of the far wall letting in no light from this side of the Dome until at least late afternoon. His second thought is a jumble of abrupt panic at the half-packed duffle bag next to where Ahsoka’s sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“General!” she says first, scrambling to standing, then squatting immediately back down to thumb over her phone to pause the music. “I didn’t know it was—well, yeah,” she says, losing steam before she can finish. She glances around the floor of her own room as if suddenly conscious of the state of it. Obi-Wan watches the surprise in her expression turn to an embarrassed sort of discontent as she straightens again.

“You’re packing,” he says, some dismay coming through in his voice. She’s in the middle of actually taking his terrible advice to leave the Jaeger program, and he wants to shake his past self for being so foolish. No time for that, now, so he asks, “Can I sit?” She only motions to the empty chair with none of her usual warmth.

Ahsoka nudges her duffle with a toe and crosses her arms, but doesn’t sit back down. “Yeah, I was gonna give my notice to Marshal Windu this afternoon,” she says, and then goes quiet.

“Please don’t do that,” Obi-Wan says quickly. She gives him a weird look, and he resolves never to hand out annoyed advice while emotionally compromised ever again. With a sigh, he says, “I know this might be hard to trust coming from me, but the Dome needs you to stay.” His hands feel useless in his lap, so he clasps them together, leaning an elbow on her desk.

Ahsoka narrows her eyes at him, which is fair, considering everything that happened yesterday—two days ago? The back of his neck starts to ache; yet another joy of pulling an all-nighter in your thirties. “I already spoke with Anakin, and now I have to apologize to you, Ahsoka.” She starts to roll her eyes, but he needs to do this. “Not just for my outburst, although I feel I can’t apologize enough for that. I mean for all the times the Dome has failed you, too.”

This gives her pause. She searches for something in his expression, and says, softly, “What?”

“You really are the best cadet we’ve ever trained here,” he says, trying to imbue his words with the earnest truth. “I don’t think I’ve seen a cadet succeed so well at growing into all the real facets of a Ranger since watching Anakin become one. And so, I’m sorry the Dome has failed to not just give you the future you want, the career you’re so well-suited for, but—but also failed to give itself the Ranger it so desperately needs.”

She looks like she’s actually starting to consider his words now, staring at a corner of the room without really looking at it. Her mouth twitches, and she brings a hand up to absentmindedly fidget with one of her braids. “It’s not your fault they couldn’t find a partner for me,” she says, but it sounds like just something to say while she thinks about other things. Her expression hardens, then, and Obi-Wan clenches his own hands tighter together. “It _is_ your fault you didn’t pair me with Rex,” she says, and Obi-Wan nods in instant agreement.

“You’re exactly right on that,” he says, then steels himself. “It was my mistake, and I should’ve known better. But—” and he’s a coward, probably, for not looking at her face when he says it, “—I have a plan for you and Rex that might work, and it might not. I just ask you to let me try again.”

“I thought the Clones were out of commission, now,” she says, and then lets out a small scoff, seemingly to herself. “Just my luck I finally find one person to drift with and then they go and get electrocuted by a Kaiju.”

Obi-Wan turns over his next words in his mind for a second, before losing control of his mouth and saying, “I think we might have two people for you to drift with now.” Ahsoka whirls on him, mouth agape, but Obi-Wan quickly adds, “Heavy emphasis on ‘I _think_ ’. We’d have to do a test to make sure, and I know it’s a lot to ask of you again—”

She cuts him off with a laugh, half wild. “It’s a lot all right, but—yeah, what the hell. Two?!” she’s saying, and Obi-Wan finally stands up, a smile threatening to bloom. “Today?” Ahsoka asks.

“I have to gather the necessary people – we’re doing things officially, this time – but yes,” he says. “Today.”

He feels buoyed up, a focus and determination returned to him, each step around the Shatterdome a revitalising one. It feels as though for the past couple weeks he’s only been floating, practically aimless in comparison to this revitalised purpose coursing through him. He could power a whole Jaeger with the energy he’s suddenly gained. As he takes the lift across the main hangar his habitual look out over the view is caught by the sight of a clunky new attachment on Tai Mate’s otherwise sleek frame, a hazard symbol painted over the boxy shape, almost small, relative to the rest of the Jaeger. A thrum runs through Obi-Wan’s nerves at this, the physical evidence of the strategy ready to be put into action. There’s no amount of fingers he can cross to make sure that it all goes in their favour, but he can’t let this slow his momentum now.

Shaak Ti is in her office when he reaches it, and at the imperious raising of her eyebrow, Obi-Wan says, “We’re doing another drift test. On the record, this time – and with _three_ pilots.”

Her expression slowly morphs into an approving smile, and she says, “I will prepare it now.” Obi-Wan swings out of her doorway with a ‘thank you,’ thrown behind him and heads back down the hall, pulling out his tablet to send a note to Anakin and the Fetts about meeting Ahsoka in the Drivesuit Room. It’s all perhaps a little premature, or over-confident, as he technically doesn’t have permission to set this all up yet, but what is he a general for if not for making his own decisions? A separate note gets sent to Plo Koon and Marshal Windu, to meet him in the command centre. The brightness in his chest feels like it’s shining out of him in all directions; this is the surest he’s felt about an outcome in a very long time, and it’s more refreshing than anything.

As he somewhat expected, Plo is already in the command centre when Obi-Wan arrives, only a couple minutes after he sent the message. Windu enters no more than thirty seconds later, and Obi-Wan finds himself standing in front of the main console, back to the window which overlooks the hangar; a Conn-Pod-less Tai Mate is framed behind him and it’s a little theatrical but if he’s going to win his colleagues over about this he’s going to need all the help he can get. A couple of the shift officers look over at them from their consoles with curiosity.

“Marshal, Commander,” he says. “I believe I have a solution to our current Jaeger problem, in the form of two new pilots to accompany Rex Fett in Tai Mate.” He raises a hand to gesture in entreaty to both of them. “If I have your go-ahead, this will allow us to follow through with our plan to destroy the breach, without having to wait on a transfer of the bomb, or a new Jaeger to be shipped over.”

“Who are these pilots?” Plo asks. He’s always so surprisingly tall when not seated for Mission Control, but for some reason his height is never the least bit menacing. Obi-Wan quirks a smile at him.

“Cadet Ahoska Tano,” he says, “and J-Tech Anakin Skywalker.” He sees Windu’s eyes widen.

“With all due respect, is Skywalker quite capable of piloting a Jaeger anymore?” Windu says, stern brow furrowed.

If it had been asked of him any time before today, Obi-Wan would have denied it completely. He knows now, though, that if there’s anyone who can co-pilot one arm of a Jaeger out of sheer force of will, it is certainly Anakin. “Yes,” Obi-Wan says with a nod. “I believe so.”

Plo hums in consideration. “With the assistance of two other co-pilots, the lack of one natural arm is very likely not any true impediment,” he tells Windu. “Especially when the former Ranger is as stubborn as Skywalker.” Obi-Wan holds in his laugh out of sheer professionalism.

With this measured reassurance from Plo, Windu’s skepticism apparently wanes, and he gestures for them all to sit down. “They’ll have to be tested, as part of PPDC protocol,” he warns, but it’s an acceptance of the plan. Obi-Wan says, “Naturally,” and turns in his seat to switch on the comms between Tai Mate and the Control Room. “Is everyone ready in there?”

He can feel Windu rolling his eyes as if he hadn’t anticipated that Obi-Wan would have done most of the organizational work already. Ahsoka chirps an affirmative through the speakers, followed quickly by a ‘yessir,’ from Rex and an already impatient ‘have been for a while,’ from Anakin. Shaak Ti calls in from the Drivesuit Room and then they’re off, Plo counting down to zero and the neural handshake initiating.

The Control Room door opens with a bang and when they all turn with a jolt towards the sound they’re met with a breathless Cody wincing in embarrassment at the spectacle of his intrusion. “Am I late?” he says, then, “Are they—?” Still wide-eyed, Obi-Wan just shakes his head, waves him over.

It’s suddenly hard to be distracted from the beginnings of the read-out with the feeling of Cody standing right behind him, his presence an exciting force, but Obi-Wan manages to focus enough to watch the lines on the screen merge, the numbers on the simplified display climb up and up until they’re at a brilliant ninety-six percent. Obi-Wan lets out a real breath, like he’s been holding it all the way since Anchorage.

“Rex and Anakin are on the left side,” Cody says, suddenly very close to Obi-Wan’s ear. He feels the urge to shiver at it. “Ahsoka on the right.”

Swallowing down on the prickle on the back of his neck, Obi-Wan asks, “His prosthetic?”

“On, for symmetry’s sake, but it’s no problem,” Cody says. Obi-Wan knows he is smiling without needing to turn his head. “Clearly,” Cody says, a little louder, and then they’re all letting out a bit of a laugh in relief. They’ve really got a chance.

Shaak begins a formal statement of drift compatibility over the comms because they’re doing this the official, PPDC-approved way and they’re all on record, when an alert chime goes off from one of the console panels and not half a second later the alarm siren sounds out in the rest of the Dome.

“Two Cat-4’s on the detector, sir!” an officer announces, and sure enough, the monitor on the main console switches to show two ambling dots approaching Japanese waters.

“Only category 4?” Obi-Wan says, but it’s too quiet to be heard over the sound of Plo and Windu issuing orders across the Control Room and into comms. A light touch on his shoulder reminds him that Cody’s there still, and Obi-Wan unthinkingly, brings a hand up to pat at Cody’s fingers briefly before twisting to speak into his microphone.

“Tai Mate,” he says, abruptly aware of the difference in official team now. “As you’re probably well aware, there’s been two category 4 Kaiju detected. Can you confirm for the record that you are willing and able for immediate deployment?”

Three distinct confirmations respond back to him, and Obi-Wan can only imagine what kind of thought they must all be sharing, what kind of grin echoes between each other. Plo takes over for the mission set-up, Shaak switches off her comms now that her job is done, and Obi-Wan finally lets himself turn around to look at Cody.

His hair is too short to hang anywhere near his face but it still looks ruffled, like he hasn’t bothered to try and flatten it back down. He has dark circles under his eyes, and looks like he’s been getting about as much sleep as Obi-Wan – he briefly wonders if he appears the same, just a disheveled and sleep-deprived general running around the Dome with eager purpose. Cody blinks down at him, then, the fingers of his left hand creeping back onto Obi-Wan’s shoulder, a silent question in his expression.

They both jump when Windu speaks. “Your orders are to incapacitate both Kaiju, secure the bomb to them, and send everything back through the breach. We will detonate the bomb remotely. Do you copy?”

Three voices simultaneously ring out in a confident affirmative; while Obi-Wan was lost in Cody’s eyes everyone seems to have gotten Tai Mate ready for their mission in record time. He supposes turning a test drift into a real mission is about as much confirmation for their newly formed team as they will ever get. He shifts to face Cody again.

“How’s Fives doing?” he asks. Cody purses his lips at first but ends up nodding, retracting his hand from Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

“He’s okay. Woke up early this morning, just resting for now.” A muscle in his jaw twitches and he sighs, rubs his hand at the back of his neck. “I think we—our drift really is gone. There’s no echoes left or anything.”

Obi-Wan squints vaguely at the console, considers the implications of the word ‘ _echoes_ ’. He’d never really given much thought to it but he supposes that in every account from Rangers through the past decade there are descriptions of the lingering effects of the drift, how the synchrony of action and thought never completely fade back to normal. That Tai Mate’s encounter with the EMP managed to destroy all traces of their connection is more than significant.

“How are _you_ doing, then?” Obi-Wan asks.

With a small, lop-sided smile, Cody says, “Yeah, I’m okay,” and then straightens to look up at the screen now displaying the live camera feed. “Better once these ugly beasts are gone for good.”

They can see Tai Mate from a little distance above as the Jaeger takes huge strides through the ocean towards what looks like two great churning lumps of scales and arms and teeth. The first has two fleshy, almost oxen-like horns protruding along each cheek, mouth agape and filled with conical teeth, dipping occasionally below the water’s surface. A thick crocodilian tail swishes side to side through the water behind it, propelling the Kaiju forward at a rapid pace.

The second lingers back, circling around to let its comrade get a first jab in at Tai Mate. It has a double set of arms on each side, with three wickedly sharp claws for each hand. Its head is a grotesque, sunken in sort of thing, as if its skin is stretched perilously thin over the bones. Obi-Wan feels his face contort in disgust as he watches the live feed, the helicopter hovering around to the side enough to see each knob of the Kaiju’s vertebrae, spines extending up along its back in a line.

“This is what you guys were watching the whole time?” Cody says, almost a sense of wonder in his voice – this is how the landbound half lives, set fully apart from the fray and restricted to TV screens.

Obi-Wan is about to respond as much, but then the first Kaiju is dashing in towards Tai Mate for an attack, undulating once to dip below the surface to gather speed. Through the comms they can hear Ahsoka announce her intention of using the right gauntlet shield, Rex replying with a “Good idea, I have palm blast,” and Anakin – his all-focus, all-business, all-excitement pilot voice reverberating through the speakers at long last – yells, “Brace for impact!”

Tai Mate doesn’t budge when the Kaiju collides with them into their shield, momentum swinging it around to the side where the third arm is already aiming its palm blast. The hit is dead-on, bursting wholly away one of the fleshy horns and making it recoil back, severely wounded. The second Kaiju has taken the other’s attack as opportunity to get closer, and once Tai Mate disengages from the first hit it rears up above the water line, arms flung outward in an intimidating display, letting out a terrible screech.

Tactical chatter from inside Tai Mate filters through the speakers, but Obi-Wan suspects that the majority of their action planning is done subconsciously, with only shared thoughts bouncing around between them. The right arm prepares to unleash its missiles on the Kaiju’s four-armed display but at Anakin’s half-voiced urging Tai Mate waits, front left arm cannon still charging up, assuming a ready stance. Obi-Wan tilts his head toward Cody, about to ask what possible strategy could be brewing, when suddenly the Kaiju whirls one set of arms at Tai Mate, misjudges the distance of the strike and whips past with a rush of air that sends a wave through the water around them. Tai Mate pushes forward then, grabbing the top arm that just passed by to pull it along its momentum, and shoving its right arm around to the drive all of its missiles into the back of the Kaiju’s bony ribcage.

Windu lets out a _humph_ that could be interpreted as being slightly impressed, and Cody exhales like he’s just untensed his shoulders for the first time in hours. “Why did we let them all pilot the same Jaeger,” Obi-Wan groans, even though he knows this is still the best idea he’s ever been a part of making.

The four-armed Kaiju screeches again, its body arching disconcertingly until it twists around and down to slash with its free claws at Tai Mate’s left leg. Rex’s arm lets loose its grip on the Kaiju so that they can move away, but it’s no great loss; the first, now heavily injured Kaiju moves back in to attack just in time to be hit with the fully charged front left cannon. The blast hits it right at the seam of neck and torso, and with a strangled roar – that thankfully doesn’t carry very well through the video feed – it falls back dead in the water.

A couple of cheers come from around the Control Room but Windu just says firmly, “There’s still one more,” and they quiet down. Then a ping chimes from the detector.

Plo is on it before Obi-Wan can even connect the dots, pressing a button on his console and speaking into his microphone, “Tai Mate, there is a category 5 Kaiju emerging from the breach, repeat, a category 5 making its way over.”

“Where is the Hong Kong team?” Windu asks one of the comms officers. “Sentinel Shadow should be there by now.”

The closest officer swipes at her tablet with a frown, and then says, “Sorry sir, it seems Sentinel Shadow is suffering some, um, untreated effects of the EMP.”

Obi-Wan shares a stunned look with Cody. The new Tai Mate is holding their own pretty well, but it shouldn’t just be up to them with a new category 5 on the way. Part of him wants to collapse and say that of course Sentinel wouldn’t get off so scot free from the last mission, but the remainder of his responsible, professional side knows this wouldn’t help anything. 

He makes himself release his overly tight grip on the chair arm, flex his fingers, run through solutions. With Sentinel Shadow stuck at Hong Kong, their next nearest ally is either down in Sydney, or over in Los Angeles, both of which would take an unreasonable amount of time to get over here. Tai Mate has the bomb attached to it, and as long as they were smart about everyone’s positioning, the blast would likely be able to take out both Kaiju, or at least considerably damage them. The downside is that it would also considerably damage Tai Mate, and would leave them without a weapon to send down the breach. The Tokyo Shatterdome would certainly be left without defense and the Defense Corps. would have to prepare a new bomb before another gang of Kaiju made their way up. According to Padmé’s predictions, however, that would definitely not take very long.

The category 5 is travelling fast on the detector screen, and seems like it knows exactly where it wants to go. It appears less than a minute later on one of the secondary live feeds, but its shape is initially difficult to discern on video; it has a gnarled dragon of a face, grey and dripping like the flesh is already trying to melt off of its bones, and a long, dark frill spewing back from its neck like a cloak, rippling along through the water and – churning up dark clouds in the water behind it? No, they’re fish, hundreds of _dead fish_ , left behind in the wake of the frill’s deathly touch.

Tai Mate is still engaged with the category 4 on a different video screen, throwing another palm blast at it that only manages to graze one of the Kaiju’s arms. Obi-wan nervously chews on his own lip, fingers running over his beard for something to do other than cramp up clutching at his chair while he watches. He feels held captive by a video feed yet again, Anakin’s voice coming occasionally through the speakers throwing him all the way back to Anchorage when he thought he had his life together.

But Anakin has Rex and Ahsoka now, and – a glance at the drift read-out – they’re still at ninety-six percent. Despite the tenacity of the category 4 the new Tai Mate is still making good headway. Perhaps, as long as they can dispose of this one before the category 5 makes it, they’ll pull through without the help of another Jaeger.

As if he’s destined to look away at every moment of sudden disaster, Obi-Wan shifts his gaze to the side when Cody moves from behind him to lean against the table next to Windu, and so gets to see the exact moment when Cody’s eyes widen and his mouth hisses into a shocked grimace, every part of his body tensing as if to leap through the monitor to help his brother—

“Control, we’ve got a problem here!” Ahsoka shouts through the comms, followed by a strained grunt. Obi-Wan tries to search for the category 5 on the video feed, and only sees it circling around behind Tai Mate like it’s already made a pass. The category 4 has fallen back as well, as if to observe the damage it’s already done, but—Tai Mate doesn’t look damaged.

“The left leg is stuck,” Rex says, and Anakin adds, “Probably an internal circuitry issue. All movement below the hip is frozen.”

“Oh, shit,” Cody mutters.

Plo, contained as ever, says, “Hold a defensive position and charge your weapons. Keep both Kaiju engaged until we can find a solution.”

All three pilots copy and Tai Mate swings its functioning leg around to settle into a more stable stance. The category 5 has other plans, though, and leaves the category 4 to deal with the Jaeger; instead it slithers away through the water towards—towards—

“Marshal, sir,” a control officer calls out none too anxiously. “The Cat-5 is heading to land.”

As if from a distance, through a deceleration of time, Obi-Wan thinks. He recalls his sparring with Cody not two days ago, how neither of them could get a hit in for the synchronicity of their movements and counters, how it had seemed so natural to let Cody in, let Cody know all these things about him. How, in a moment of guilt and tension, Cody had reminded him how much he cared. How they had fit so well together, despite the differences in their upbringing, or their current ranks.

At the same moment, the notion of the basement-Jaeger flits into view. Anakin had completed repairs on it, and it still sits in sub-bay 4, waiting patiently with its nuclear reactor core, the one that Obi-Wan hadn’t felt necessary to have lying around. The nuclear core which would remain unaffected by electro-magnetic attacks. The Jaeger that only needs two pilots.

These two ideas slot together, and time speeds back up.

“Windu,” Obi-Wan says, standing up abruptly and forgoing all norms. Windu starts, he’d been in the middle of saying something, Obi-Wan thinks, but there’s very little time. He gestures to the marshal and the little group of officers surrounding him. “Pull up the Jaeger in sub-bay 4 to the main hangar and get her started. Cody and I are going to help Tai Mate.”

“We’re doing what?” Cody says, but Obi-Wan has a hold of his arm now and is pulling him towards the door. Either he’s about to lose his job for undermining the marshal or he’s about to put an end to the entire Kaiju invasion and Windu will have to thank him.

Or he’s about to die, as Cody indirectly reminds him, “You’ve never piloted before!”

“No,” Obi-Wan agrees. He hopes someone actually pulls the basement-Jaeger up before they get there, but they’re running towards the lift for the lower Conn-Pods. “But, I figure it can’t be too hard if someone like Anakin can do it.” He shoots a tilt of a smile at Cody and hears him laugh, what a brilliant sound, and as they breath hard for the door to the main hangar upper catwalks, Obi-Wan confirms to himself that if they both get out of this alive, he’s going to make sure he hears that laugh again.

There’s another Drivesuit Room on this slightly lower level, and because they’re not going to drop down in the Conn-Pod there’s no need to go to the fancy one upstairs. They can see from here the slow rise of the basement-Jaeger coming up through a hatch out of the sub-bay and Obi-Wan could kiss Windu for it, the stubborn bastard, not that it would ever be appreciated.

They snap themselves into drivesuits, Cody with practised movements and Obi-Wan following along closely by observation, and then they’re stomping down the hall and out into the hangar to where several J-techs have the basement-Jaeger’s Conn-Pod hatch open. The motion of each footstep feels too slow to Obi-Wan, as unused as he is to the weight of the suit and the stiffness of its joints, but there’s no time to think about it too hard; Anakin and Ahsoka and Rex are out there dealing with one Kaiju while the other rushes over to terrorize the greater Tokyo area.

Obi-Wan locks his feet into the tracks in the Conn-Pod floor, the machinery underneath them more exposed than not, and only realizes afterwards, with a sudden look to Cody that he’s put himself on the right side without even asking. Cody only returns his look with a gentle eyebrow raise – _you okay?_ – and Obi-Wan tries not to squirm when the lead cord hanging down from the Conn-Pod ceiling gets plugged into the drivesuit receptor at the base of his neck by a technician.

The J-techs clear out while Cody starts flipping switches, and Obi-Wan remembers that he doesn’t need to have piloted a Jaeger before to know what the buttons do, to be the exact opposite of his previous mission controller experience. The comms are flipped awake, and the Jaeger thrums as it turns on, ready for action. 

Obi-Wan’s hands clench around his arm rigs just when Plo’s voice comes through the comms, deep and steady as he says, “Engaging pilot-to-pilot protocol,” and the voice of the basement Jaeger’s AI confirms it. Obi-Wan keeps his breathing steady, because he can do this, and he has to do this, and he’s going to do this. Even when Windu gives him the out of a lifetime by asking, “You’re really sure about this, general?” Obi-Wan says yes, he is, because there’s simply no other option.

“Prepare for neural handshake,” Windu says then, and Plo starts a countdown from 15 seconds, of all the starting times. Cody waves his hand to get Obi-Wan’s attention.

“Just let it flow around you,” he says, and it takes a short moment for Obi-Wan to realise he’s talking about the drift. “Don’t get caught on any specific memories, mine or yours, and don’t try to hurry through them, either,” he advises. “Just be still.”

“Just be still,” Obi-Wan repeats back, a little unsure how to apply this tactic, but then Plo is saying “Two . . . One,” and he’s pulled in without any more warning.

A swirl of colours fills his vision but settles on a soft sort of blue, and rather hazily, Obi-Wan watches the images in front of him—around him, Cody and all his brothers running on the beach, the shine of the sun on top of the water, walking with his mother to the _marae_ for a meeting, his father under the foot of the Auckland Kaiju as it thunders mayhem throughout the city. Just as soon as he sees it though, it is replaced with the hedgerows and stone walls of his own childhood, a boy’s school uniform laid out on the bed, the view out of an airplane window of perfect cloud cover, solitary wanderings over the thick snow of an Alaskan winter, his own father’s lifesigns cutting off in the Anchorage LOCCENT. As the memories have whirled they’ve shifted from their initial blue to a warm gold, and with a swelling from deep within his chest, Obi-Wan watches through both his own and Cody’s eyes the first time they met, out on the front dock of the hangar, and that swell lifts up through him so tight in his throat as to burst out before it even becomes a sound, and – they’re in the basement-Jaeger, and he and Cody raise their hands at the same time.

“. . . strong and holding,” Plo’s voice finally filters in through Obi-Wan’s consciousness, until he’s viewing the HUD of the Conn-Pod before him with crisp clarity.

“Right hemisphere calibrated,” he finds himself saying, and then along the same thought, Cody says, “Left hemisphere calibrated.” He glances over at Obi-Wan with a quick smile.

“This is strange,” Obi-Wan says, and when Cody laughs he feels like he’s laughing too.

“You better get accustomed fast,” Windu’s voice cuts in over the comms. “Hold the Hiroshi Nihon Line against the Cat-5, and provide back-up for Tai Mate as they deploy the bomb. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” he and Cody say simultaneously, and Obi-Wan has a feeling a lot of simultaneity is in their immediate future. He feels a near-instant echo of this sentiment from Cody, and if they were not taking their first steps away from the hangar through the sudden vastness of the ocean, Obi-Wan would investigate that feeling further, where exactly in the back of his mind the presence of Cody resides – their drift connection. Where exactly is he sitting inside of Cody’s head, a perfect mirror to his own?

Walking in the Jaeger is as easy as walking was in the unconnected drivesuit, so: stiff and heavy, but not completely unnatural. The HUD overlays schematics and sonar imaging on top of a direct image of their surroundings, not much fading into anything like a periphery, everything crystal clear. He tries not to let himself get distracted by the newness of it all, and with a mental nudge from Cody they are facing the direction of the incoming Kaiju, almost approaching the range for Jaeger-to-Jaeger radio contact. Obi-Wan has the strange dual sensation of standing above the giant mass of the robot below him, and standing _as_ the giant robot, filled with several thousand tonnes of power, nuclear heart pumping steadily and confidently. He feels unstoppable, and Cody is right there with him.

The water undulates with more than just the usual waves straight ahead of them, and then the thing is just barely surfacing, racing towards the coast behind them as if the basement-Jaeger is not there at all. There’s a flash of thought shared between them that they should’ve named this mech at some point but they can think about that later, if— _when_ they get through this. Following the tug of Cody’s movement, Obi-Wan shrugs off the defensive stance he had initially thought of, and then they’re running forward too, on a collision course, and a breathless gasp leaves his mouth just as they both reach forward with the Jaeger’s hands and drag the Kaiju up and around, out of the water in an arc only to slam it back down heavily below the surface. In the action they’re finally able to see what exactly its frill consists of; thin, semi-translucent, jellyfish-like flesh crackles with little sparks of electricity, bordered with little tendrils at the end of it that must be the cause of the clouds of killed fish surrounding it.

“We’ll hold it and take the action back out,” he says, or maybe Cody says it, it really is hard to tell, but Plo is confirming this plan from back in LOCCENT and the Jaeger’s grip on the Kaiju is keeping firm for now. Some sort of digit- and wrist-locking mechanism has automatically engaged. They start a fairly quick pace eastwards, trying to contain the thrashing from the Kaiju to a minimum as they drag it with them.

When they can see Tai Mate a couple hundred metres away, their short-range comms kick in.

“Who is that?” they hear Ahsoka say, just before the category 4 Kaiju takes a slash at them. Through the neural handshake with the basement-Jaeger, Obi-Wan can distantly feel the prickles of electric current around his own legs as the category 5 tries to worm its way out of their grip, clearly trying to wrap its frill around and incapacitate them.

“My baby!” Anakin cries out, recognizing the basement-Jaeger.

“Your general,” Cody corrects wryly.

They hear a gasp. “My brother!” Rex says.

“Can we possibly do this after we’ve dealt with the Kaiju,” Obi-Wan says, then he hisses, a sharp pain stabbing into his right arm. He thinks for a split second that this is possibly the worst time for his arm to seize but then he realizes the pain is coming from lower down, and then the basement-Jaeger’s hand loosens its grip on the Cat-5 all at once, its teeth sunk right into the mechanical tendons.

“You have shoulder missiles, by the way,” Anakin grits out to them while Tai Mate grapples with the category 4. With only a brush of mutual confirmation against the drift connection, Obi-Wan and Cody engage their arm rigs into the right position, lock onto the category 5 where it twists in the water, and fire. It’s very strange to be the one actually implementing the attacks instead of just watching them through the video feed, and for a second Obi-Wan’s not sure that they even fired at all until he has the sight of the category 5 writhing as it gets pelted with missiles in its gnarled face, and Cody sends a silent and necessary reassurance from his left.

Plo buzzes through the comms from LOCCENT, “Tai Mate, what is the current status of your circuitry issue?”

“We’re mobile again,” Ahsoka replies. “Skyguy managed to fix the leg.”

“As well as I could from up here,” Anakin adds. Obi-Wan watches the category 4 momentarily nurse a wound on one of its arms.

“If the – the general and Ranger Cody keep the category 5 engaged, then Tai Mate can finish off the category 4 and make for the breach,” Plo says, only halting for a millisecond over how to refer to the basement-Jaeger. If it were any other time, Obi-Wan would have to hold back a laugh at the fact that an unnamed, by all accounts retired piece of machinery will now be put on record as going against a category 5 Kaiju.

“Copy that,” they respond. Obi-Wan locates the temporarily retreating figure of the category 5 and says, “Let’s follow it, take this whole thing further out.”

“Good plan,” Cody says. With steady steps, both Jaegers push the Kaiju out a couple more kilometres away from the shore, and back towards the breach, keeping them engaged from afar with Tai Mate’s palm blaster. When the category 4 dips in close to the basement-Jaeger, Obi-Wan moves his right arm in a way that accidentally activates a short sword to extend out of the Jaeger’s gauntlet. He has to roll his eyes when he hears Anakin say, “Oh right, I put that in too,” a smirk evident in his voice.

The sword isn’t half bad, though; the category 4 thrashes another sharply clawed arm at them on one of its passes, and with an arcing swing – just like with a staff in the training rooms – the basement-Jaeger slices the Kaiju’s arm clean off. It lands in the water with a splash, drowned out by the cheer that goes up from Tai Mate. The category 4 retreats again instantly, circling back around with ungainly movements, and the category 5 takes its place in front of the basement-Jaeger, swerving side-to-side in quick movements to avoid coming in range of their sword.

“Do you think they’ve named these things yet?” Ahsoka asks with a grunt of exertion. Tai Mate lunges towards the sudden opening in the category 4’s defense and lands a straightforward bludgeoning blow on the Kaiju’s thin flank.

“I dunno, that Cat-5 kinda looks like a ‘Sheev’ to me,” Rex says, and with an accompanying laugh from Anakin, he aims his palm blast at the skeletal face of the category 4 in front of them and fires. It bursts on the Kaiju, and when it flails, Tai Mate’s main arm cannon is shown the perfect opportunity to hit it square in the neck.

With one last, aborted groan, the category 4 collapses back in the water and remains still.

“Great work,” Obi-Wan tells them, a little strained at how many side-steps he and Cody are having to take to manoeuvre with the category 5, but then suddenly it whirls around, low in the water, its frill uselessly lapping at the basement-Jaeger’s knees as it turns away, darting toward Tai Mate.

“Watch out—!” Cody says, but the remaining Kaiju is too quick. Its collision with Tai Mate would never be enough to do much harm but when its frill, still sparking with thousands of little electric pulses, tangles with Tai Mate’s legs like a jellyfish’s arms it shocks Tai Mate into complete stillness from the waist down. 

“Oh, shit,” Anakin says. Struck as they were in their dynamic posture after having killed the category 4, and without the use of their calf stabilisers, Tai Mate is very much unbalanced, already starting to tip forwards.

“I thought you fixed it before!” Ahsoka accuses, and they hear Rex say, “Don’t panic, guys,” but before Obi-Wan can say something reassuring, or even make a call back to Plo about what the plan with the bomb should be now that Tai Mate is incapacitated, the category 5 launches itself up out of the water towards them.

A jolt of panic echoes between him and Cody but thankfully their reflexes aren’t dulled, and Obi-Wan slides the basement-Jaeger’s sword up into the chest of the Kaiju. The weapon doesn’t stop it, though, as it hooks its claws around them, and wraps them bodily with the tentacles of its frill. Thankfully its attempts at electrocution are ineffective on this older model, but when he can feel their now top-heavy arrangement start to topple them over too, Obi-Wan’s heart really starts to race in earnest.

“It’s all right,” Cody says stiffly, or maybe he just thinks it, it’s hard to tell, but then he’s actually grabbing the Kaiju with the Jaeger’s left arm, engaging the grasp locking mechanism, and leaning his weight – their weight, the Jaeger’s weight – forward. Obi-Wan has a thousand questions roiling in his mind and Cody’s saying or thinking or feeling that everything’s okay, don’t worry, and then they’re fully under water.

“What the—” Anakin is saying, distantly, through the helmet speakers, right next to his ear. “What are you guys doing, we have the bomb!”

After an endless couple of seconds, Obi-Wan starts to discern Cody’s plan. “We should radio back to co—” he starts to say before realising that his hand is automatically reaching to turn off their long-range comms. He finally looks over to his left – an action he somehow hadn’t felt necessary before now, because of course, they’re attached through their minds already – and sees Cody looking at him warily, as if he’s trying to judge Obi-Wan’s reaction, which is absurd. He already knows what Obi-Wan is thinking.

“We have to,” Cody says aloud. Obi-Wan knows because he watches Cody’s mouth say the words this time, and he nods back.

“Anakin, Ahsoka, I—I’ll see you soon,” he says, and then Cody is saying his own, “Back soon, Rex,” and they turn the short-range comms off too.

“Back-jets on full,” Obi-Wan announces to no one, because they’ve disconnected themselves from LOCCENT, from Tai Mate, and with a firm hold on the Kaiju wrapped around them they propel themselves forward. Although they can’t necessarily see anything with the category 5 surrounding them, the basement-Jaeger HUD still shows the rough outline of the ocean floor, the breach itself about a couple hundred metres ahead.

The category 5 attempts a headbutt, jostling them roughly in the Conn-Pod with the sheer force of it, before trying to find purchase with its teeth. Obi-Wan flinches at a crack that seems to reverberate through his helmet. The display on the screen in front of them flashes a little exclamation point on a schematic of the Conn-Pod but Obi-Wan only acknowledges it distantly.

“Cody,” Obi-Wan says. He can feel his muscles straining from all the exertion they’re very much not used to. The breach is 120 metres away, 100 metres, the HUD helpfully counting down their approach. “Cody,” Obi-Wan tries again.

“Yeah,” Cody replies with a soft exhale. “I know.” The category 5 squirms in their grip suddenly, its unflappable hold around the Jaeger with its frill finally fading as it gets the message that it’s going home for good, whether it wants to or not. 60 metres. The AI announces that their internal O2 levels are dropping. Obi-Wan ignores it and rotates his wrist to twist the sword into the Kaiju further, and hopes the remaining locking mechanism holds onto the beast for just a little bit longer. 40 metres.

“It’s an ingenious plan,” Obi-Wan says, a little detached. “I kept telling Anakin that using these old things was like walking inside a bomb.”

Cody reaches up to punch in a series of buttons on the console above them. “Thank you, sir,” he says, and it’s almost ridiculous how relaxed it sounds, with the churning of the back-jets and the thrashing of the Kaiju around them, the breach below them, suddenly. Obi-Wan turns the jets off, and Cody presses the last button in the command sequence, and – the AI is pleasantly informing them that his input for a reactor override needs manual confirmation. And that internal O2 is at 50%.

Obi-Wan curses. He can feel Cody forming the word ‘ _no’_ and says aloud, cutting him off, “I’ll do it. You go.”

The Kaiju is being pushed down into the breach ahead of them, the ugly, gaping thing finally opening up with its presence. Cody reaches over with his right hand. “Obi-Wan—”

“Cody,” Obi-Wan says, heart thrumming, willing his breath to stay slow and even while they sink very quickly downwards into the mouth of the chasm. They’re running out of time and air both. “Let me do this for you.” He reaches out his left hand to catch Cody’s, and their clasped hands hang there for a second.

And before Cody can do anything about it, Obi-Wan reaches over with his other hand to engage the evac pod. “Obi-Wan, wait!” Cody shouts, and all Obi-Wan can do is let go of his grip and say – and think, and feel – “I’ll try! I promise!” and then Cody is pulled up into the evac mechanism, floating thankfully away to the surface. Obi-Wan waits for the mental jolt, the abrupt disconnect of the drift to slam into him but it never comes; it’s there and then it’s not.

He lets himself out of the arm rig and foot holds, the flashing of the HUD asking for manual authorization initially making it difficult to see where on the floor the correct hatch is, but he finds it, yanks on the lever in there, and the AI is saying “Core meltdown in 60 seconds.” Obi-Wan lets out a breath, then realizes maybe he should’ve held it. O2 is at 20% already; he distantly concedes that the Kaiju got one last good hit on them, at least.

The Kaiju’s writhing movements slow and falter, though, and Obi-Wan realizes that it must have been losing blood this whole time, on the journey over. He can be thankful for that, at least, as he straps himself back into the rig, not worrying about actually piloting anymore, just letting gravity do the work to let him sink down far enough. He waits for the terrain around him to look as alien as possible through the Conn-Pod display, and soon enough, everything starts to look ragged and huge and blurry at the edges, with vague shapes shifting around, waiting to swarm on the intruder.

The AI says there’s 20 seconds left until the meltdown, oxygen is rapidly running out, and Obi-Wan shakily punches in the code to engage his own evac pod, frantically thinking something like ‘this better not need manual override as well,’ but it doesn’t. As he’s being pulled through into the escape mechanism, he catches a last glimpse of the awful landscape of the Kaiju, and he rockets towards the surface. It’s all the effort he can expend to close his eyes, hope he can get back through, hope the melting nuclear core of the basement-Jaeger is as powerful a danger as he’d thought, and he whites out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I'll post the last, much shorter chapter in a day or so, and also I've been working on a separate, ~~E-rated~~ epilogue fic that may get posted in a couple weeks, depending on work!)


	5. Chapter 5

Everything is quiet, and very slowly, Obi-Wan realises he can feel his own closed eyelids. There is soft light coming from somewhere, and he can feel the gentle warmth of it on his skin, not just on his eyelids but on his cheeks – something’s fractured there, a pulse of pain with each heartbeat. His head is an anchor weight, the rest of him floating in the swell of the tide, he thinks, but soon enough parts of him settle into tangible space. Unfortunately, most of it aches.

His throat is unbearably dry, his legs are sore, and his chest feels uncomfortably tight, but he’s breathing. There’s a calm hum at the back of his skull.

A hand is holding his own. Obi-Wan creaks his eyes open.

Cody’s there, sat in one of those uncomfortable, plastic med centre chairs, leaning forward at an awkward angle so that his left hand is holding Obi-Wan’s, as his right hand props his head up, elbow on Obi-Wan’s bed. His face is turned away like this, but quickly whips around when Obi-Wan attempts to squeeze Cody’s fingers. Maybe Obi-Wan’s sense of perception is still off, but Cody feels really close. He doesn’t question it, though; the closeness feels right. There is a tingling sensation where his skin touches Cody’s, like some nebulous feeling of overlapping materials.

He blinks at Cody slowly, who seems to flounder for a second while Obi-Wan observes sedately. His hand shifts in Obi-Wan’s loose grip, and then he says, “It’s – good morning.”

Interesting. “Is it, now,” Obi-Wan remarks, trying to roll his head to the side to look around the room. There’s a bed a couple feet over from his, behind Cody’s seat, with rumpled covers clearly abandoned. On the other side, an IV drip curves down from a stand, and into the fold of his elbow.

It pulls his gaze back when Cody smiles, a small thing. His thumb strokes slowly over the back of Obi-Wan’s hand, and it becomes Obi-Wan’s sole focus for a while, until Cody seems to lose patience. “The breach is destroyed,” he says abruptly. “The plan worked, everyone’s alive – including you – and they even got Tai Mate back in more or less one piece.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan says. He’d forgotten that those were questions he was supposed to ask. “Good.” He tries to blink further awake, then, clear his mind of the fog that seems insistent on settling over him. “I suppose—” He coughs raggedly, spurring Cody into leaning back to grab a cup of water. “I suppose it’s all over, then,” Obi-Wan says after he’s taken a sip.

“Yeah, it is,” Cody says, blowing out a breath. He lets go of Obi-Wan’s hand, and, hazily, as if separated by a pane of glass, Obi-Wan thinks that they’ve all suddenly got a lot of life left to go about living. He lowers the cup to his lap once it’s empty, and looks over at Cody.

“Are we still drifting?” He asks, and the surprise on Cody’s face is almost an answer in itself. They’re definitely still connected; now that he’s further cognizant, he can place that hum in his mind as being the same tether to Cody, but now slightly muted. He’s sure they’re not thinking the same thoughts anymore, but Cody’s presence is just as much inside Obi-Wan’s brain as it is in the chair beside him. “Can’t you feel it?”

“I can,” Cody says. He rubs a hand around the back of his neck sheepishly. “We’re not really drifting anymore, it’s just. Echoes?” Obi-Wan nods, and Cody idly taps a finger on the edge of the sheets, smooths them out. “I’d kind of forgotten that’s how it’s supposed to feel.”

Obi-Wan tries to imagine what the connection between the Fett brothers must have been like, near the end. Even more muted than this? Or with jagged edges, perhaps, rough spots to avoid going over. “I’d thought, maybe, with the evac pod—” Obi-Wan struggles to find the right words. “I thought the sudden disconnect might . . . ?”

Cody shakes his head. “No, the Jaeger’s built in things against that. It wouldn’t cause more damage while you’re trying to just escape it.” He looks off to the side, then, and Obi-Wan gets a good look at his face in profile. He traces with his eyes the curve where Cody’s brow meets his nose, and then the dip just above his lips.

Cody’s jaw works, and then his fingers tighten on the sheets and release, and in a rush he asks, “Why did you do that?” He dares a glance at Obi-Wan, deep brown eyes boring into him for a split second. “We could’ve done it together.”

Obi-Wan grips the cup in his hands, absentmindedly pressing on it from all sides as he tries to think of a reasonable answer. ‘ _We were losing oxygen_ ,’ is the first thing he thinks of, but it doesn’t really mean anything. ‘ _It’s better on the mission record for the Defense Corps., if one of us is sure of surviving_ ,’ is the next thought, which is absurdly bureaucratic, and twists an ugly feeling in Obi-Wan’s stomach. If the fight really is over he shouldn’t have to think in those terms anymore. This leads into ‘ _I was – am? – your general_ ,’ which is just the worst thing to say, so Obi-Wan squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, and tries to remember if he even had a reason, if there was any solid thought that crossed his mind between knowing they were going to fall and reaching up to activate Cody’s emergency pod.

Obi-Wan opens his eyes, focuses on both the gentle pressure of the link in the back of his head and the weight of Cody’s gaze on him, and says, “I don’t know.” He takes a shallow breath, then, “I just did it.” The real answer hovers softly around their drift connection: _I needed to make sure you would live._

Cody holds onto his own reaction for a moment, his eyes dropping to somewhere around Obi-Wan’s neck, his lips unmoving as he takes it in. Just as he inhales, preparing to speak, the door opens.

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin says, voice loud and grinning. He rounds the end of the bed and comes up on the side where the IV is, reaching over to put a hand on Obi-Wan’s head, then his shoulder. He gives a short, sharp laugh, and says, “You blew up my Jaeger!”

Ahsoka and Rex come in too, with Fives tagging along behind, and Obi-Wan can’t help but smile at all of them, or as much as his hurt cheek will allow. “Good to see you, too,” he says.

In Obi-Wan’s peripheral view, Cody leans back in his chair, head tilted towards his brothers. Anakin continues. “I worked on her all summer, tirelessly, and now she’s all exploded along the ocean floor,” he says. Obi-Wan huffs a laugh and holds a hand up to try to placate him.

“We’ll get you a nice new nuclear reactor, soon,” he says, energy waning. “A better one. You’ll see.”

This gets a laugh from Ahsoka. “You spoil him, general,” she says, leaning her elbows on the footboard of his hospital bed.

This naturally devolves into a chattering, good-natured argument over whether or not Anakin _deserves_ a replacement Jaeger as reparations, with Rex and Fives chiming in every so often to throw easygoing jabs in at Anakin’s ego. Rex is now familiar enough with the ins and outs of Anakin and Ahsoka’s bearing through their drift that he can comfortably join in. Obi-Wan settles back, feeling content, maybe for the first time in about ten years, and observes: the teasing trio, Fives’ sly grin at their antics, the shake of Cody’s head at a particularly exasperating pun.

He’s not sure when he drifts off back into sleep, but the last thing Obi-Wan feels, apart from his water cup being carefully extricated from his hands, is the brush of easy warmth along the hum in his mind. He doesn’t dream at all.

***

Windu visits him later that day, in his last hour in the med centre, after Cody had retreated with his brothers, and Obi-Wan had already changed back into civilian clothes. He’s just waiting for one of the nurses to sign off on his release, so he doesn’t think anything of it when the door opens, until he sees the marshal walking through.

“I came to offer my congratulations,” he says, tucking his hands behind his back in an approximation of parade rest, and Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows. Every time someone mentions that he was one of the key players in defeating the Kaiju and destroying the breach, it takes him a little by surprise, like it didn’t really happen because he wasn’t in the Command Centre at the time. Windu tilts his head a little. “I trust that you’re fully recovered.”

“Yes, I—yes, sir,” Obi-Wan says. “Thank you.”

Windu nods at this, as if he’s just proven his own hypothesis correct. “I also came,” he says, “to offer you a job.”

Obi-Wan stills. “Pardon me?”

"Although the PPDC is bound to be disbanded, or at least downgraded now that the Kaiju are finished, the UN would still be lucky to have you,” he says. Obi-Wan just stares. “In whichever capacity you’re willing, of course. I’m sure they won’t be too picky when it comes to the general-turned-pilot who set off the last bomb.” Windu shifts his weight, relaxed, and Obi-Wan tries to take all this in.

“I’m not sure, I . . .” he starts, thoughts racing for some end to the sentence. He never thought about much more than moving from the barracks back to the house in Alaska, in his imaginings of post-Kaiju life. He supposes he’s gone and made a career for himself now, without even really thinking about it, but again, he’s not sure what he wants to do with it.

Windu seems to be able to tell that much, at least. “I’ll let you think on it,” he says, and then the nurse is coming in with papers for Obi-Wan to sign, and Windu leaves to let him simmer on it all the way back to his room in the barracks. He furrows his brow and sits on his bunk, eyes darting around the familiarities of his room but never catching on anything, and soon enough he’s standing again, pacing from his bunk to the small window and back, a headache building steadily across his brow.

He loses track of time while he thinks in circles: how surprising this offer is, how he imagines returning to his father’s empty house in Alaska, where he might go if he took the job, where he might go if he didn’t. He pauses then, suddenly, and pivots towards his door, unthinkingly placing his hand on the door handle for one second, two, and then opening it.

Cody stands just outside with his fist raised to knock. He lowers his arm and peers at Obi-Wan. “You okay?”

Obi-Wan gestures for him to come in, but the motion turns into their hands falling together without either of them really thinking about it. Obi-Wan stares down at their shared grasp, and Cody lets out a little huff. “I can feel your headache from here, Obi-Wan,” he says, and Obi-Wan ignores the thump of his heart at hearing his own name.

“You can?” he asks. “How far do we have to be before—it doesn’t matter, sorry,” he cuts himself off. Echoes, right. Cody merely adopts a look of amused patience. Obi-Wan stops himself from rocking up onto his toes, and says, “Windu just offered me a job with the UN.”

He doesn’t mean to blurt it right out, and although Cody doesn’t actively try to remove his hand from Obi-Wan’s grip, the hum quiets, and Cody’s expression shutters. To his credit, he only runs the pad of his thumb along Obi-Wan’s hand, and says, quietly, “Are you going to take it?”

It is this answer which feels more important than the one he will give to Windu, Obi-Wan realizes. He’s standing in his own basically anonymous barracks room, devoid of personality with its blank walls and standard, boring contents. He’s standing, holding hands with a man he’s known for a week but who already has a distinct place inside his actual brain, and Obi-Wan has one in his, even. He thinks about the cold snow of Alaska and the shining water he witnessed in the drift – he thinks of the breathless kiss they shared on the mats of the training room. Gradually, he comes to a decision.

“I—don’t think so,” he says. Still looking away at the cupboard where his own duffel bag lies, he adds, “Maybe I could go somewhere away from the Pacific Ocean for once.”

He finally glances back to Cody in time to see his lips twitch up at a corner. At the same time a little tingle of a feeling appears in his brain, he quickly tacks on, “But—” exactly when Cody says, “I know it’s—”

They both laugh, but it’s comfortable, and their hands swing a little between them. “You go,” he tells Cody, looking at him with soft eyes, which he knows are slowly getting crows-feet at the sides.

Cody does that quick, determined face again, steeling himself for action. “It’s not away from the Pacific,” he says, “but you could always come to New Zealand.”

Obi-Wan feels that hum glow warm and bright in the back of his skull and his lips pull into a real smile. “Cody,” he says, pronouncing his name like it’s some splendid shape. “I’d love to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading and commenting and being so nice. I'm still working on a separate epilogue fic (and have ideas for more, different codywan in future) so you'll see that soon enough! <3

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at [brigitttt (main)](https://brigitttt.tumblr.com/) and [brigittttoo (side with writing)](https://brigittttoo.tumblr.com/),, as well as twitter [@brigitttt_](https://twitter.com/brigitttt_)  
> Thank you! <3


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